Matthew Tkachuk to Return for Florida Panthers Against Minnesota Wild
Matthew Tkachuk will return from a five-game absence for the Florida Panthers in their 6:30 p.m. clash with the Minnesota Wild on Thursday.
FORT LAUDERDALE — Matthew Tkachuk is officially ready to go after missing the past five games for the Florida Panthers.
The star winger came up ill during the team’s four-game road trip last week and was flown back to South Florida from Buffalo on Saturday to get a procedure done.
“I’m feeling very good,” Tkachuk said ahead of Thursday night’s matchup with the Minnesota Wild. “I was never really sick, I just had to get a little procedure done. But I’ve been good since then. Just had to take a few days to make sure everything was all settled and now I’m ready to get back in the lineup and help.
After a quick moment of concern and just over a week of recovery, Tkachuk is back and set to get back on the ice.
“First of all, you’re not 100 percent sure what it is, because it was just an illness,” coach Paul Maurice said. “And then there’s a spectrum to all these things. They could be really bad or not bad. And when he got back, got tested, it was not bad. So they have a treatment for it. They did it, he’s ready to roll.”
The Panthers continued to find ways to win without Tkachuk (and captain Aleksander Barkov), going 3-1-1 in his absence, including Thursday’s 4-3 overtime win against the Vegas Golden Knights where they had to play a man short due to an injury to Jonah Gadjovich and salary cap restraints.
“Guys are playing well,” Tkachuk said. “In the last two, especially being able to watch them come from behind and get important points.
“Whether it was a big point in that Vancouver game and then being down in the third and finding a way to win the Vegas game was huge. And they’re playing well, they’re working hard, they’re playing simple, they’re working for each other. I’m happy to get back in the lineup and help them out.”
Tkachuk was not able to watch the first two games he missed during his procedure — which included the lone regulation loss (a 5-2 loss in Buffalo) they suffered in that stretch — but he is pleased with what he has been seeing.
“I think, for starters, [Anton Lundell’s] line has been playing amazing and I think everybody can learn a lot from them and how they are playing super tight together, the give-and-goes, and I’ve watched them closely the last few and they’ve been incredible each and every shift,” Tkachuk said.
“I just think watching everybody, like the work, playing undermanned, and defensemen playing forward, it’s just been a crazy start of the year and guys have done an incredible job of coming out of games with wins and just playing really well. And that’s what we have here. We have guys that can step up, we’ve got a lot of depth. Obviously, yoi don’t want to deal with people being in and out of the lineup, but it just speaks to our depth.”
THE NEWS
Today’s game will air at 6:30 p.m. EST on Scripps Sports and Panthers Plus. It will also be available for streaming on ESPN+ for those outside of the Panthers’ broadcast territory.
This game is part of the NHL’s Frozen Frenzy, where all 32 NHL teams will be playing on the same night with NFL RedZone-style coverage for it starting on ESPN+ at 7 p.m.
For more information on how to catch this afternoon’s game, visit nhl.com/panthers/info/how-to-watch.
— THE PUCKS AND PALMS MAILBAG IS OPEN: Download the Substack app and ask a question in our subscriber chat before 8 a.m. EST on Wednesday to be featured in this month’s edition of the mailbag.
— Sergei Bobrovsky will get the start in net against Minnesota for his first crack at earning his 400th career win. He sits at 399 wins going into tonight’s game.
PANTHERS PROJECTED LINEUP
Eetu Luostarinen — Anton Lundell — Sam Reinhart
Carter Verhaeghe — Sam Bennett — Matthew Tkachuk
Evan Rodrigues — Jesper Boqvist — Mackie Samoskevich
Uvis Balinskis — Patrick Giles — A.J. Greer
Gustav Forsling — Aaron Ekblad
Niko Mikkola — Dmitry Kulikov
Adam Boqvist — Nate Schmidt
Sergei Bobrovsky
Spencer Knight
Scratched: N/A
Injured: Tomas Nosek (LTIR), Justin Sourdif (SOIR), Aleksander Barkov (lower-body), Jonah Gadjovich (back spasms)
MINNESOTA WILD PROJECTED LINEUP
Kirill Kaprizov — Marco Rossi — Mats Zuccarello
Marcus Johansson — Joel Eriksson Ek — Matt Boldy
Marcus Foligno — Marat Khusnutdinov — Yakov Trenin
Jakub Lauko — Frederick Gaudreau — Liam Ohgren
Jacob Middleton — Brock Faber
Jonas Borodin — Zach Bogosian
Jon Merrill — Declan Chisholm
Filip Gustavsson
Marc-Andre Fleury
Injured: Jared Spurgeon, Ryan Hartman
(Wild lines via DailyFaceoff.com)