Brady Tkachuk’s first weeks with the Florida Panthers were bumpy enough to raise an eyebrow. Then came the kind of stretch that wipes all of that away in a hurry.
The Panthers winger was named the NHL’s first star of the week after piling up six goals and 10 points in four games, turning a slow opening into one of the league’s loudest bursts of production. He also made history in the process, scoring back-to-back natural hat-tricks and becoming the third player in NHL history to do it in consecutive games, joining Cy Denneny in 1923 and Petri Skriko in 1986.
Florida kept making history around him, too. When Carter Verhaeghe posted a natural hat-trick on Saturday, the Panthers became the first team in NHL history to record natural hat-tricks in three straight games.
Tkachuk, 27, looked miles away from the player who went pointless in his first five games and seemed out of sync early on. Since reuniting with his brother Matthew, who also had a huge week with 10 assists, his game has settled in and the results have followed.
The NHL’s weekly honors also went to Edmonton Oilers star Connor McDavid as the second star and Minnesota Wild forward Kirill Kaprizov as the third star.
The league’s official release spelled out just how explosive Tkachuk’s week was: he led the NHL with 6-4-10 in four games and helped push Florida to a trio of wins. His first point with the Panthers came on an assist in a 5-3 loss to the Buffalo Sabres on Oct.
- From there, the pace spiked fast.
He followed with 3-1-4 in a 7-3 win over the Columbus Blue Jackets on Oct. 13, then scored three more times in a 3-2 comeback against the Vancouver Canucks on Oct. 15. That included the tying goal with 12.8 seconds left in regulation and his 13th career overtime winner.
Tkachuk’s run also put him in another exclusive club: he became the third player in Panthers history to record hat tricks in back-to-back games, matching Noel Acciari, who did it from Dec. 16-20, 2019, and Pavel Bure, who did it from Feb. 10-14, 2001. He was also the first player on any NHL team to do it since Auston Matthews from Feb. 15-17, 2024, with Toronto.
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What made this outburst even more notable is that he shared the spotlight with Sam Bennett in a way the Panthers had never seen before. It was the first time in franchise history that two Florida players each scored a natural hat trick in the same game, a rare kind of offensive eruption that says plenty about how well the top end of the lineup is clicking right now. [Read more 🡒]