SUNRISE, Fla. — Florida Panthers ahead Matthew Tkachuk needed to be helped off the ice and brought to the locker room after a collision with Tampa Bay’s Nikita Kucherov throughout Monday evening’s sport.
Tkachuk later returned within the second interval to a standing ovation, and jumped onto the Panthers’ power-play unit in his first shift again.
“We would not let him again within the sport if we did not assume he was OK,” Florida coach Paul Maurice stated in his in-game interview on Scripps Sports. “But he is powerful.”
Kucherov crashed full-speed into Tkachuk’s proper leg late within the first interval, inflicting Tkachuk to fall and seize at his knee. He remained down for a pair minutes till a workforce coach helped him off. He did not seem to place any weight on the leg.
Kucherov was assessed a five-minute main penalty, and after a officers’ assessment, a sport misconduct for the hit.
Tkachuk, in his third season with the membership, is second on the workforce with 13 objectives and 22 assists in 30 video games this season.
The Lightning led Florida 3-0 on the finish of the primary interval due to objectives by Kucherov, Jake Guentzel and Mitchell Chaffee. It was the again finish of back-to-back video games for the 2 rivals, because the Panthers defeated the Lightning, 4-2, Sunday evening in Tampa.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
