Hitting the ground running in his first season with the Panthers, Tkachuk leads the team and ranks tied for seventh in the NHL in scoring with 29 points (10 goals, 19 assists). Per NHL PR, his 20 points are the most-ever recorded by a Panther through the first 20 games of a season.
Posting his fifth multi-point performance in the last seven games, Tkachuk had a goal and an assist as the Panthers opened up their trip with a 4-3 overtime loss in Edmonton on Monday.
With the Panthers leading 3-2 in the third period on goals from Tkachuk, Anton Lundell and Brandon Montour, Evan Bouchard scored with 4.4 seconds left on the clock to tie the game for the Oilers and set the stage for Leon Draisaitl's game-winning goal 22 seconds into overtime.
Putting forth an exceptional performance against Edmonton's high-powered offense, Spencer Knight turned aside 36 of 40 shots between the pipes for the Panthers, including making 12 high-danger saves.
"Spence was good today again," Lundell said. "Without him, we would've been in big trouble. Overall, we need to help Spencer a little more, but it's important to have a goalie that's hot."
At 10-8-4, Florida is just one point out of a playoff spot in the Eastern Conference despite enduring some early-season adversity, including the current loss of captain Aleksander Barkov. Dealing with a non-COVID illness, Barkov is expected to miss his third straight game tonight.
"I think we did good overall," Lundell said of the loss to the Oilers. "It was a good game. Of course, tight game, tough loss, but there's always something we can improve. Now we take the good things with us and try to improve a little bit on those things that we can be even better at."
Looking to break out of a three-game slump, the Flames closed out their six-game road trip with a 3-2 loss at Carolina on Saturday. Tied 2-2 in the third period, Brett Pesce scored on the power play at 8:46 to put the Hurricanes up 3-2 with what would hold up as the game-winning goal.
With the loss, the Flames fell to 9-9-3.
"We've got to score more," said Flames forward Mikael Backlund, citing the fact that Calgary has scored just three goals during its current three-game losing streak. "We got some looks."
One of six players on the team with at least 10 points, Elias Lindholm, who has 12 assists in 22 career games against the Panthers, leads Calgary in scoring with 16 points (six goals, 10 assists). On his heels, Nazem Kadri has logged 15 points, including a team-leading eight goals.
Expected to start for the Flames, Dan Vladar is 1-4-1 with a .908 save percentage.
