BOSTON – Matthew Tkachuk is going to be out of the lineup for about a week, head coach Paul Maurice announced prior to Monday’s game against the Boston Bruins at TD Garden.
“He’s going to be out a week,” Maurice said. “I think we’re shooting for Minnesota at home a week from tomorrow.”
Tkachuk initially sat out Saturday’s loss at Buffalo with an illness.
No additional information on his status is currently available.
If Tkachuk is able to return to action on that target date of Oct. 22, the superstar forward will thankfully only have missed five games. Prior to that matchup against the Wild, the Panthers will play the Bruins, Blue Jackets, Canucks and Golden Knights.
In the early goings of his third season with the Panthers, Tkachuk has racked up a team-high 199 points (66 goals, 133 assists) in 161 games since his arrival 2022. Through the first two games of this season, he’d dished out two assists prior to falling ill.
Tkachuk joins Aleksander Barkov as key Panthers dealing with early-season ailments.
Barkov (upper body) is expected to miss two to three weeks.
Still, the defending Stanley Cup champions are confident in their next-man-up mentality.
“You might as well plunge yourself right into it (adversity) early because it’s going to come throughout the year,” defenseman Nate Schmidt said. “Might as well get it done with and hope this is the only thing you run into.”
The Panthers will drop the puck against the Bruins at 1 p.m. ET.
With Barkov and Tkachuk out, they’ll deploy 11 forwards and seven defensemen.
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