Colby Guy
If Matthew Tkachuk did not already make a strong case for the NHL Hart Trophy — which goes to the league MVP — he certainly made a statement on Thursday night with the Florida Panthers.
Tkachuk willed the Panthers to a 5-2 win over the Montreal Canadiens with a four-point showing and his second hat trick of the season.
He bumped his point total up to 101 in the process, making him the fourth player to hit the 100-point mark this season.
Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and Nikita Kucherov are the other members of the 100-point club.
McDavid — who has made scoring 143 points look easy, somehow — is the runaway favorite for the Hart Trophy. No one is questioning that.
He is the first player since 1995-96 to score that many points and is fueling the Edmonton Oilers in a run to a top-three seed in the Pacific Division.
It would be borderline treason to give anyone else a first-place vote.
Second place, however, is pretty much open.
Tkachuk has made his a strong case.
He has been the driver of a Panthers team which has suffered through a slew of injuries and illnesses that finds itself in the thick of a playoff race.
Tkachuk has very much been the reason for it as he has over 30 more points than the next-highest scoring Panther all while ranking in the Top 10 in the league in just about every major category.
But he goes about his business much differently than other stars do.
He is not a speedster who relies on rush chances to generate points nor is he a power play one-timer specialist who generates a large sum of his points off one style of play.
Tkachuk does it all.
He grinds his way to goals at the front of the net, he can cut through a defense and make things happen with his hands and his playmaking ability allows him to create plays for his teammates.
And he creates those chances off of takeaways rather than fishing for the easy breakout pass.
“There is no cheat in his game,” Florida coach Paul Maurice said. ”Really, really good players anticipate and just good players cheat. He doesn’t have any of that. He is not hanging out behind the play, he doesn’t stretch plays, he’s not trying to do things with the puck that are all-offense with no understanding of the cost of the defensive game.
”His defensive game has gotten way better and I put him on the ice at the end of games because he has an incredible set of hands but he also has a really good idea of how to defend. If we could afford the minutes, he would kill penalties because he gets it, he is such a bright man on the ice.”
That was exactly how Tkachuk led the Panthers to yet another important victory on Thursday night.
He immediately dug Florida out of a 1-0 hole by lobbing a shot on net that Anton Lundell was able to pick up and score to tie the game back up 4:23 in.
But he was not done yet.
Sam Reinhart found a wide-open Tkachuk near the front of the net on the power play to put the Panthers ahead 3:59 into the second period.
Tkachuk rifled a wrist shot from the top of the slot just two minutes later to give Florida a two-goal lead that it never relinquished.
Lundell picked the pocket of a Montreal defenseman and scored on a dazzler of a breakaway for his third goal in two games since snapping a 12-game point drought.
The 21-year-old has hit his stride since being paired with Tkachuk last week and is feeding off of the mentality he brings to the ice every night.
”My favorite part (about being on a line with him) is his compete,” Lundell said.
”He wants more and isn’t satisfied to get one goal or one point. He wants more all the time and he really pushes the whole team.”
He got one more goal to seal the deal on the empty net while helping the Panthers close out the game defensively.
It was a game that encapsulated what Tkachuk brings to the table and how important he is for a Florida team on the cusp of a playoff spot.
But where he would ultimately end up in Hart Trophy voting ultimately depends on if the Panthers make the playoffs — regardless of whether it is fair to him or not.
As big as his impact on Florida is, it would be much harder to overlook what would likely be a 100-point campaign from David Pastrnak on a dominant Boston Bruins team if the Panthers team he led failed to make the playoffs.
Same would go for candidates like Nikita Kucherov, Nathan MacKinnon and Mitchell Marner, to name a few.
As things stand right now, the race for the final wild card spot in the Eastern Conference essentially boils down to the Panthers and the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Florida is currently one point behind Pittsburgh, who have a game in hand, meaning the Panthers will have to win at least two more games than the Penguins in their final six-game stretch run to make it.
If they do — and Tkachuk plays a big role — there is a chance he could secure an invite to the awards show in Nashville.