MILAN \u2014\u00a0Leon Draisaitl is among the four or five best hockey players on the planet. And if there\u2019s one thing Matthew Tkachuk has learned, it\u2019s to throw everything he has at him. Including words.<\/p>\n
The last two NHL seasons have ended with Tkachuk\u2019s Florida Panthers defeating Draisaitl\u2019s Edmonton Oilers in the Stanley Cup Final. And with the United States leading Germany in the second period of Sunday night\u2019s group-stage finale at Milano Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena, the television broadcast picked up Tkachuk offering his rival a helpful reminder.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlways the bridesman, eh, Leon?\u201d he said as the two skated near the benches. \u201cAlways the bridesmaid, never the bride.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked about it after the Americans\u2019 5-1 victory, Tkachuk demurred.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s always a challenge,\u201d he said of playing Draisaitl. \u201cOur teams have some history. And (it\u2019s) always fun playing him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tkachuk, with his linemates Brady Tkachuk and Jack Eichel, were matched up against Draisaitl\u2019s line for much of the night. Matthew finished the game with two assists, while Draisaitl was held off the scoresheet.<\/p>\n
Tkachuk, whose mouth often rivals his play, said his hot-mic moment wasn\u2019t necessarily typical of the players\u2019 rivalry.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wouldn\u2019t say so,\u201d he said. \u201cSome guys, you\u2019ve got to play harder than most physically, and maybe after the whistle sometimes, too. I thought our line, I thought (Eichel) especially did an unbelievable job of giving him and their line nothing tonight. Sometimes you\u2019ve got to play both parts of the game. I thought mainly (Eichel) did a great job, (between) the whistles, of playing him hard.\u201d<\/p>\n
And after the whistles, well, that\u2019s the Tkachuk brothers\u2019 specialty.<\/p>\n
Draisaitl, whose German squad finished group play 1-2 and will face France in the qualification round on Tuesday (with the winner getting No. 3 seed Slovakia), did not stop to talk with reporters in the mixed zone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MILAN \u2014\u00a0Leon Draisaitl is among the four or five best hockey players on the planet. And if there\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":459259,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5125],"tags":[198,146,5300,57,5,54125,4,24,2602],"class_list":{"0":"post-459258","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edmonton-oilers","8":"tag-edmonton","9":"tag-edmonton-oilers","10":"tag-edmontonoilers","11":"tag-florida-panthers","12":"tag-hockey","13":"tag-mens-olympic-ice-hockey","14":"tag-nhl","15":"tag-oilers","16":"tag-olympics"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116077407014346645","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459258","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=459258"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459258\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/459259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=459258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=459258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=459258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}