Panthers make their decision on Matthew Tkachuk for playoff opener against Lightning
Florida Panthers fans had to wait nearly until puck drop, but they got the news they were waiting for.
Star winger Matthew Tkachuk, sidelined since mid-February with an apparent groin injury, is active and will in the lineup for Game 1 of the Panthers’ opening-round Stanley Cup playoffs series against the Tampa Bay Lightning on Tuesday at Tampa’s Amalie Arena.
Coach Paul Maurice said at the team’s morning skate that Tkachuk was going to be a game-time decision.
“With these long-term injuries, we just wait until the last [minute],” Maurice said Tuesday afternoon. “He’ll get checked out one more time by the doctors before we get him cleared.”
Spoiler alert: He was cleared, went through warmups and what felt like the worse kept secret has become official. The team announced at 4:30 p.m. that Tkachuk had been activated off injured reserve. Shortly afterward, Tkachuk all but confirmed that he would be playing by posting a highlight reel on his personal Instagram account.
The league’s roster report has him on the active roster, with Florida’s scratches listed as forwards A.J. Greer, Tomas Nosek, Jonah Gadjovich and Jesse Puljujarvi in addition to defenseman Jaycob Megna (Aaron Ekblad, suspended until Game 3 of the series, is also obviously out).
This all comes after Tkachuk was a full participant in the Panthers’ past two practices on Saturday and Monday before the team traveled to Tampa, where Tkachuk was also on the ice for morning skate. In those practices, he took his customary spots on Florida’s second line with Sam Bennett and Mackie Samoskevich as well as on the Panthers’ top power play unit with Aleksander Barkov, Sam Reinhart, Samoskevich and Seth Jones.
Tkachuk last played for the Panthers on Feb. 8 before heading off to the 4 Nations Face-Off, which served as a replacement to this season’s All-Star Game and featured top NHL players from the United States, Canada, Finland and Sweden representing their home countries in a tournament setting.
The star winger sustained his injury during the United States’ 3-1 win against Canada on Feb. 15 — his second game of the tournament. He didn’t play the final 12:36 of that game, which secured the United States’ spot in the championship game and during which he led a run of three fights in the opening nine seconds. With the USA already locked into the title game, Tkachuk then sat out the round-robin finale against Sweden on Feb. 17 entirely.
In the championship game on Feb. 20, which Canada won 3-2 in overtime, Tkachuk played just 6:47 and finished his final shift with 3:22 left in the second period.
Tkachuk has not played for the Panthers since then but did begin skating again on March 31 and has spent about two-and-a-half weeks doing individual drills to get his conditioning back before rejoining team practice sessions on Saturday.
Prior to the injury, Tkachuk was second on the Panthers in goals (22), assists (35) and points (57) while leading the team with 11 power-play goals and 23 power-play points over 52 games.
Florida’s lineup should be as follows...
Forward lines
Carter Verhaeghe-Aleksander Barkov-Sam Reinhart
Mackie Samoskevich-Sam Bennett-Evan Rodrigues
Eetu Luostarinen-Anton Lundell-Brad Marchand
A.J. Greer -Nico Sturm-Jesper Boqvist
Defense pairs
Gustav Forsling-Seth Jones
Niko Mikkola-Dmitry Kulikov
Uvis Balinskis-Nate Schmidt
Goaltenders
Sergei Bobrovsky
Vitek Vanecek
This story was originally published April 22, 2025 at 1:14 PM.
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