Panthers’ Matthew Tkachuk reportedly undergoes surgery, will miss start of season
Star Florida Panthers forward Matthew Tkachuk has reportedly undergone surgery to tend to injuries that hobbled him late last season and will miss the start of the 2025-26 season as a result.
The Fourth Period’s David Pagnotta reported Friday that Tkachuk had surgery “a few weeks ago.”
What Tkachuk specifically had surgery for — he sustained both a torn adductor muscle and a sports hernia during the 4 Nations Face-Off in February — is unclear, as is the timeline for his return, although the report said he could be out until January.
That follows the timeline Tkachuk gave to ESPN two weeks ago when he said he was still deciding if he was going to have surgery.
“If I do get the surgery, it’ll definitely be the first two or maybe three months if that’s the case. But it’s still undecided at this point,” Tkachuk told ESPN on Aug. 8. The Panthers open the 2025-26 season on Oct. 7 against the Chicago Blackhawks. Being sidelined for three months would point to a January return.
It’s worth noting the 2026 Winter Olympics, the first in which NHL players are able to participate since 2014, take place in February. Tkachuk in June was one of the first six players named to Team USA, along with brother Brady Tkachuk, Auston Matthews, Jack Eichel, Quinn Hughes and Charlie McAvoy.
“He was a mess,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said.
Yet after missing the final 25 games of the season and being uncertain for the start of the postseason, Tkachuk played in every game of the Stanley Cup playoffs and finished averaging a point per game — 23 points (eight goals, 15 assists) in 23 games to help the Panthers repeat as Stanley Cup champions.
In the week after the Panthers won the Cup, Tkachuk said it was “probably 50-50” whether he would have surgery this offseason.
“I don’t know if it’ll be a normal summer or not,” Tkachuk said on June 21. “I hope so. I’m just gonna jump right into surgery without talking to everybody and going through everything. I mean, I have a few weeks here where I can figure it out.”
With Tkachuk set to be sidelined early, the Panthers will able to place him on long-term injured reserve to begin the season. That would temporarily take Tkachuk’s $9.5 million cap hit off the books while he is sidelined. Florida needs that because the Panthers are currently $4.5 million over the cap when factoring in Tkachuk’s contract. Players placed on LTIR must miss a minimum of 10 games or 24 days (whichever is longer).
However, should Tkachuk be activated from LTIR during the regular season — Florida would need to shed salary elsewhere to get cap compliant. Barring other players landing on LTIR that offset that salary cap overage after Tkachuk comes back, that will most likely come in the form of trades. The players on the roster without no-trade clauses with cap hits of more than $1 million next season are forwards Anton Lundell ($5 million), Evan Rodrigues ($3 million), Eetu Luostainen ($3 million) and Jesper Boqvist ($1.5 million) plus defensemen Niko Mikkola ($2.5 million) and Dmitry Kulikov ($1.15 million).
The Panthers have 13 forwards outside of Tkachuk under contract: Aleksander Barkov, Sam Reinhart, Sam Bennett, Carter Verhaeghe, Brad Marchand, Lundell, Rodrigues, Luostarinen, Boqvist, A.J. Greer, Tomas Nosek, Jonah Gadjovich, Mackie Samoskevich and Luke Kunin, the latter of whom signed a one-year, $775,000 deal with the team on Friday.
This story was originally published August 22, 2025 at 4:36 PM.
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