Matthew Tkachuk played through some serious injuries en route to winning a second straight Stanley Cup with the Florida Panthers.
The 27-year-old forward revealed postgame that he tore one of his adductor muscles off the bone and was dealing with a hernia on the same side of his body. Tkachuk suffered the initial injury while playing for Team USA at the 4 Nations Face-Off and missed the last 25 games of the regular season.
“He was a mess,” head coach Paul Maurice said postgame. “That’s the medical term: He was a mess.”
“I wanted to throw in the towel a bunch of times,” Tkachuk told TNT’s Darren Pang. “I got to thank a lot of people for getting me healthy enough, and I’m sure I wasn’t the easiest to deal with. My fiancée did a great job with the house on days when I probably wasn’t in the best mood. Coming to the rink, maybe not in the best mood, the trainers, the pain, the doctors – I just owe them so much.”
Tkachuk recorded 23 points (8g, 15a) in 23 playoff games during this run for the Panthers, tying Sam Reinhart and Carter Verhaeghe for the team’s postseason lead. Per The Athletic’s Michael Russo, Tkachuk is only the sixth player in the NHL’s expansion era (since 1968) to lead a repeat Stanley Cup champion in points during each playoff run.
The Arizona native ended up scoring the game-winning goal in Game 6, firing a first-period wrister from the high slot past goaltender Stuart Skinner.
Tkachuk previously played through a broken sternum during the 2023 Stanley Cup Final, which the Panthers lost to the Vegas Golden Knights.
Outside of Tkachuk’s injury, Maurice revealed that captain Aleksander Barkov had his hand cut open in Game 1 of the Cup Final, and the sutures had come apart twice before being glued shut. Reinhart, who scored four goals in the Cup-clinching victory, also played through a grade 2 MCL strain.
