Brady Tkachuk’s first week in a Florida Panthers sweater was quiet enough: one assist, no goals, six games. Two nights later, the rink picture has changed completely. The winger buried consecutive natural hat tricks against Columbus on Oct. 13 and Vancouver on Oct. 15, piling up six goals and an assist as Florida won both games. His third goal against the Canucks came in overtime.
The surge has given Tkachuk six goals through eight games, tied for fifth in the NHL and three back of Kirill Kaprizov’s League-leading nine. He needed only 10 shots on goal across the two hat-trick performances, a jolt for a Panthers club trying to steady itself without injured veteran forwards Aleksander Barkov and Brad Marchand.
Florida brought Tkachuk in from the Ottawa Senators during the offseason, pairing him with brother Matthew on a roster that won Stanley Cups in 2024 and 2025 before missing the postseason last spring. With the Panthers leaning more heavily on the brothers in recent outings, the familiar connection has shown up quickly. They grew up playing together and also shared the ice for the United States at the 2025 4 Nations Face-Off and on the Americans’ gold-medal team at the 2026 Winter Olympics.
Matthew Tkachuk set up four of Brady’s six goals over the two games, including two primary assists, and finished the stretch with six assists overall. Both brothers also picked up assists on Carter Verhaeghe’s Oct. 13 goal. They have now appeared on five Florida goals together in those two games, with two of them coming on the power play.
Built from the slot, with enough heat from distance
Four of Brady Tkachuk’s six goals in the outburst came through the middle lane. Two originated in the low slot, high-danger territory, while two were fired from the high slot. His remaining goals came from the right point and the outside-right area.
That profile fits his season-long shot map. Eleven of his 25 shots on goal have been from high-danger areas, placing him in the 97th percentile among NHL forwards and just outside the top 10 in the League. Another seven have come from mid-range locations, good for the 91st percentile at his position.
Since player and puck tracking began in 2021-22, Tkachuk has recorded 650 high-danger shots on goal, third among NHL skaters behind Edmonton’s Zach Hyman at 727 and Toronto’s John Tavares at 666. The Panthers are getting him to the hard areas, and he is making the most of the chances arriving around the paint.
There has also been more velocity in his release. Tkachuk has six attempts between 80 and 90 mph this season, a 95th-percentile mark among forwards, while his top shot has reached 89.31 mph, ranking in the 92nd percentile. Two of those heavy attempts beat Vancouver in the third period on Oct. 15: an 81.70-mph shot at 11:11 and an 80.91-mph effort with 13 seconds left in regulation.
He has posted a shot of at least 92 mph in each of the previous five tracking seasons. His fastest from that span was clocked at 96.97 mph in 2023-24, the same season he set his career-best goal total with 37. The schedule is still young, but this burst has put him on a scoring pace beyond that mark.
His back-to-back natural hat tricks placed Tkachuk in a rare historical pocket. Only Petri Skriko, from Nov. 18-21, 1986, and Cy Denneny, from Feb. 21-24, 1923, had previously recorded natural hat tricks in consecutive NHL games. Mikko Rantanen was the most recent player to score a hat trick in two straight games, doing it for Dallas during the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Florida’s puck-possession push
Tkachuk has been one of the League’s strongest players at keeping play in the attacking end. His offensive-zone time percentage sits at 50.6 percent, seventh in the NHL and in the 99th percentile among forwards. He was third in the League last season with Ottawa at 48.6 percent, trailing only Carolina’s Shayne Gostisbehere at 49.6 percent and Andrei Svechnikov at 49.3 percent.
Four of his six recent goals came on established offensive-zone possessions, with the other two produced on rushes within five seconds of the puck crossing the blue line. His two highest-probability scoring chances of the season were both power-play goals against Columbus, carrying projected goal rates of 49.48 percent and 34.10 percent. He also converted a pair of low-probability looks against Vancouver: one from an offensive-zone sequence rated at 3.46 percent and another rush chance measured at 2.26 percent.
Florida’s early injuries have made the brothers’ production more than a nice reunion story. Brady Tkachuk’s ceiling gives the Panthers another route back into the playoff race, while his scoring start has put the Maurice “Rocket” Richard Trophy conversation on the board. For now, the next challenge is sustaining it as Florida looks to turn two electric nights into the foundation of another Cup chase.
