From The Silky Mitten State: At a nervous moment for the Panthers, Matthew Tkachuk was at his best. What does that mean for Game Six in Edmonton?
From The Silky Mitten State: At a nervous moment for the Panthers, Matthew Tkachuk was at his best. What does that mean for Game Six in Edmonton?
On Tuesday night in South Florida, the Panthers dropped Game Five of the Stanley Cup Final to the Edmonton Oilers 5-3, forcing a Game Six tonight in Edmonton. Florida trailed 3-0 and 4-1 but was able to force the game into a competitive third thanks in large part to a dominant performance from superstar winger and emotional leader Matthew Tkachuk.
For Tkachuk, even as the Panthers have replicated the team success of last year's unlikely run to the Cup Final, scoring hasn't come quite as easily as it did a year ago. Last year in 20 games, Tkachuk scored 24 points, while this go-round he has 22 points in 22 games. It's hardly a precipitous drop-off, and it probably wasn't fair to expect him to keep up last spring's cartoonish dominance (e.g. scoring the game-winner in three of the four games during a sweep over Carolina in the Conference Final, while providing the game-winning assist in the other).
On Tuesday night, Tkachuk played one of his best games as a Panther, driving the Florida comeback with an overwhelming effort. He scored a beautiful goal to get his team on the board in the second then spent the entirety of the third playing his unique down low playmaking. He wore Oilers on his back as he held them off, setting up chances around the net in a furious search for the equalizer. In the game's waning seconds, he proved the unrelenting nature of his effort with a diving stop on an empty net, ultimately rendered fruitless by Connor McDavid scoring on the rebound.
Tkachuk's monstrous performance wasn't enough to clinch the Cup Tuesday, but, as Connor Earegood and I discussed on the latest episode of The Silky Mitten State, it may well be tonight should he replicate it.
Check out an excerpt from our conversation in the featured video above, then visit the full episode on Spotify or Apple Podcasts:
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