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\n Florida Panthers forward Matthew Tkachuk returned to action Thursday night following his gold medal victory with Team USA at the Milan Cortina Olympics. The Panthers celebrated with a special ceremony honoring Tkachuk and several teammates who medaled in Olympic competition.\n <\/p>\n
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SUNRISE, Fla. \u2014 Matthew Tkachuk is eager to return to NHL action, though he\u2019s not quite finished celebrating his Olympic triumph.<\/p>\n
The Florida Panthers forward, who helped Team USA capture gold at the Milan Cortina Olympics, suited up Thursday evening for the team\u2019s first game following the Olympic break against Toronto. The Panthers organized a special gold medal ceremony, which also honored Maple Leafs captain Auston Matthews, who served as Team USA\u2019s captain during the Olympics.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really think our team really showed what it\u2019s like to be true Americans and the pride we played with and how we would do every single thing for our country,\u201d Tkachuk declared while wearing his gold medal. \u201cSo, the support we\u2019ve gotten is incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tkachuk\u2019s schedule has been packed since Sunday\u2019s victory: an overnight celebration in Italy followed by a charter flight home, additional team festivities in Miami on Monday, and a White House visit for the State of the Union address alongside most of his Olympic teammates.<\/p>\n
The recent years have brought Tkachuk a string of major accomplishments, including Stanley Cup championships in 2024 and 2025, his wedding, and now Olympic gold.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe hardest thing to do in sports is winning the Stanley Cup,\u201d Tkachuk explained. \u201cYou go through an 82-game grind and then your four playoff series, some Game 7s probably, and just the physicality and the travel and everything, it\u2019s crazy. Whereas you could almost argue it over there at the Olympics, it\u2019s so hard because it\u2019s just one-game elimination.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Panthers had seven players earn Olympic medals: while Tkachuk claimed gold, Canadian teammates Brad Marchand, Sam Reinhart and Sam Bennett received silver medals. Finnish players Anton Lundell, Niko Mikkola and Eetu Luostarinen brought home bronze. Panthers executive Bill Zito served on Team USA\u2019s management team in Milan, and equipment manager Teddy Richards filled the same position for the American squad.<\/p>\n
All medalists participated in Thursday\u2019s recognition ceremony.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a weird dynamic,\u201d Marchand reflected. \u201cObviously we\u2019re disappointed and you want a different outcome, but at the same time, trying to remember to be grateful for the incredible part of it all.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Florida Panthers forward Matthew Tkachuk returned to action Thursday night following his gold medal victory with Team USA…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":473777,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5102],"tags":[56123,56124,56117,56125,56119,56120,56118,62,57,5141,56121,5,4,63,56122],"class_list":{"0":"post-473776","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida-panthers","8":"tag-102-3","9":"tag-102-3fm","10":"tag-fine-day","11":"tag-fine-day-102-3","12":"tag-fine-day-fm","13":"tag-fine-day-media","14":"tag-fine-day-radio","15":"tag-florida","16":"tag-florida-panthers","17":"tag-floridapanthers","18":"tag-have-a-fine-day","19":"tag-hockey","20":"tag-nhl","21":"tag-panthers","22":"tag-weller-radio"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116139170015989790","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473776","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=473776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473776\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/473777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=473776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=473776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=473776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}