Vancouver Canucks Gameday Preview #9: Taking On Two Tkachuks In Florida

The Vancouver Canucks (2–6–0) enter tonight’s matchup against the Florida Panthers (3–2–2) on a five-game losing streak. Their most recent loss came on Tuesday against the New York Islanders, in which Vancouver faced defeat by a narrow score of 3–2. The Panthers, however, are coming off a big 7–3 win against the Columbus Blue Jackets, in which off-season acquisition Brady Tkachuk scored a natural hat-trick. 

Tuesday’s game was a good stepping-stone towards more complete performances for the Canucks despite the results. Vancouver put together a solid second period that saw them come back from being down 2–0, fighting their way into a tie. They managed to keep the pressing Islanders to only one goal scored during the third period, with this fairly in part due to the stellar play of goaltender Leevi Meriläinen. 

On Tuesday, Vancouver also accomplished something for the first time this season — they killed every single penalty they took. The main unit consisted of Drew O’Connor, Filip Hronek, and both Elias Petterssons. Going a perfect three-for-three on the PK on Tuesday could serve as a step towards building the Canucks’ penalty kill back up after a particularly rough stretch that saw them record a 52% success rate prior to their loss to the Islanders. 

Tom Willander 

After a shake-up to the Canucks’ D-pairings on Tuesday, resulting in defenceman Elias Pettersson being elevated to the top-pair and Zeev Buium being moved to the third, it was Tom Willander who ended up playing the most minutes of all skaters on the ice — not just Canucks — with 25:43. While not part of the main units, he also saw 3:10 minutes of power play time and 1:49 minutes on the penalty kill. 

Brady Tkachuk

While he got his 2026–27 season off to a slow start, the younger Tkachuk scored a natural hat-trick on Tuesday’s win to bring his season’s point total up to five. So far, it seems as though Florida’s acquisition of the second Tkachuk has paid off in terms of offence and on-ice chaos. Tonight will be Vancouver fans’ first look at how the Canucks stack up against a two-Tkachuk Panthers team. 

Vancouver Canucks (2–6–0): 

Points: 

Elias Pettersson: 2–7–9

Paul Cotter: 4–2–6

Filip Hronek: 0–6–6

Jake DeBrusk: 3–2–5

Brock Boeser: 2–3–5

Goaltenders: 

Kevin Lankinen: 1–5–0

Leevi Meriläinen: 1–1–0

Florida Panthers (3–2–2): 

Points: 

Matthew Tkachuk: 3–7–10

Seth Jones: 1–6–7

Sam Reinhart: 4–1–5

Brady Tkachuk: 3–2–5

Carter Verhaeghe: 3–1–4

Goaltenders: 

Jacob Markström: 2–1–1

Akira Schmid: 1–1–1

Game Information: 

Start time: 4:00 pm PT 

Venue: Amerant Bank Arena 

Television: Sportsnet

Radio: KiSS West Coast 

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