{"id":416462,"date":"2026-01-19T19:30:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T19:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/416462\/"},"modified":"2026-01-19T19:30:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T19:30:14","slug":"matthew-tkachuk-is-back-for-the-panthers-will-it-be-enough-to-spark-a-run-to-the-playoffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/416462\/","title":{"rendered":"Matthew Tkachuk is back for the Panthers. Will it be enough to spark a run to the playoffs?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Matthew Tkachuk<\/a> is back with the Florida Panthers<\/a>, ready to help the back-to-back Stanley Cup<\/a> champions try to return to the playoffs and start tuning up to play for USA Hockey at next month’s Milan Cortina Olympics<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Tkachuk – who had surgery to repair a torn adductor and sports hernia over the summer, about two months after helping the Panthers win their second straight Stanley Cup – went through morning skate on Monday and was added to the lineup for Florida’s game against San Jose that night.<\/p>\n

“I’m feeling great. Just so excited to be back,” Tkachuk said. “It was a little over five months since the surgery, so just chomping at the bit to come back, really. And, yeah, happy that the day is finally here. I wasn’t coming back until I was feeling 100%. I came back not 100% one time, and that’s only a playoff thing, so I’m happy with the whole recovery process.”<\/p>\n

Tkachuk had missed nearly a full year – 72 games over 11 1\/2 months – of regular-season hockey<\/a>; he couldn’t play in the final 25 games last season after getting hurt in the 4 Nations Face-Off and has missed the first 47 games of this season.<\/p>\n

He comes back with 35 games remaining in Florida’s season and the Panthers entering Monday four points out of the second wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference.<\/p>\n

“He’s ready to play,” said Panthers coach Paul Maurice<\/a>, adding that he’s not going to over-use Tkachuk right out of the gate. “We’re happy to have him back, for sure.”<\/p>\n

Florida has stayed in the race despite having Tkachuk, Aleksander Barkov and Tomas Nosek yet to play this season because of injuries and a slew of other players filling the injured list. Dmitry Kulikov, Jonah Gadjovich and Cole Schwindt have all missed most of the season; of late, standouts Seth Jones and Brad Marchand \u2014 who are both set to be Olympians, Jones for the U.S. and Marchand for Canada \u2014 have missed time as well.<\/p>\n

“It’s seven, eight guys that at some point have gone down \u2014 at the same time, too, which is never easy,” Tkachuk said. “They’ve done a great job staying in the fight. With that being said, we have to go on a run here. We’ve got to get back in a playoff spot. We’re not happy with being out of the playoffs, but they have done an amazing job of staying in the fight, so very proud of them for that.”<\/p>\n

The Panthers went 38-30-4 in those last 72 regular-season games that Tkachuk missed, meaning they won barely more than 50% of the time. But they went 16-7 in last year’s playoffs, with Tkachuk playing in all 23 of those contests.<\/p>\n

He got what went into the record books as the Cup-clinching goal in Game 6 of last year’s final series against Edmonton; Florida won that game 5-1, with Sam Reinhart scoring four goals.<\/p>\n

“I’m here to be a hockey player,” Tkachuk said. “I’m just so excited to be back and I’m not here to cheer from the sidelines. I am here to be out there competing with the guys, and I am just so excited to be doing that and just be around the guys and be in a competitive environment again. It’s not like I can just dip my toe like I have a preseason. … I’ve told them, ‘I’m coming back, throw me in the fire.’ We need these points.”<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP NHL: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nhl<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Matthew Tkachuk is back with the Florida Panthers, ready to help the back-to-back Stanley Cup champions try to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":416463,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[463,464],"tags":[254,62,5,4,60,43,14,104,718],"class_list":{"0":"post-416462","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl-playoffs","8":"category-stanley-cup-playoffs","9":"tag-brad-marchand","10":"tag-florida","11":"tag-hockey","12":"tag-nhl","13":"tag-nhl-playoffs","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-stanley-cup","16":"tag-stanley-cup-playoffs","17":"tag-stanley-cup-playoffs-nhl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115923427203209974","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=416462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416462\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/416463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}