Panthers vs. Canucks: Brady Tkachuk Completes Back-to-Back Natural Hat Tricks in Overtime Comeback

For 51 minutes, Leevi Merilainen looked like he had signed a deal with the hockey gods. The Florida Panthers threw 31 shots at him and got nothing. Then Brady Tkachuk started shooting, and the deal expired in spectacular fashion.

Tkachuk scored three straight goals, the last of them 2:23 into overtime, and the Panthers rallied to beat the Vancouver Canucks 3-2 on Thursday night at Amerant Bank Arena. It was his second consecutive natural hat trick, two nights after he scored three in a row in the second period of a 7-3 win at Columbus. Vancouver, meanwhile, has now lost six straight.

Vancouver Builds the Wall

Vancouver needed exactly one shot to get on the board. A failed Florida clear at 7:23 of the first turned into a Linus Karlsson pass to a wide-open Liam Ohgren, and Ohgren beat Akira Schmid five-hole.

Defenseman Elias Pettersson doubled the lead at 17:06 during four-on-four play, snapping home a feed from Filip Chytil, who was back in the lineup for the first time this season after a preseason shoulder injury. Brock Boeser also assisted.

Then came the siege. Florida controlled long stretches of the rest of regulation, and Merilainen kept stopping everything. The Canucks blocked 20 shots, Merilainen handled the rest, and as the third period ticked past the halfway mark, it looked like Vancouver might finally snap out of its slide. "I thought we did a better job weathering the storm than we expected," Canucks coach Manny Malhotra said. "We capitalized on a couple of opportunities early. Again, not enough."

Shot No. 32 Breaks the Dam

The dam broke at 11:11 of the third, on Florida's 32nd shot of the night. Aaron Ekblad fed Tkachuk above the right circle, and Tkachuk ripped a shot past Merilainen. Matthew Tkachuk picked up the secondary assist, which, per NHL.com, means he has assisted on every one of his brother's first four goals this season.

That goal changed the temperature of the building. "I felt very confident we were going to come back in that game and we obviously controlled a lot of the play," Ekblad said.

With Schmid pulled for an extra attacker, Carter Verhaeghe got Tkachuk the puck in the right circle, and his one-timer clanged in off the far post at 19:47. Thirteen seconds from a win, the Canucks were headed to overtime.

It did not last long. At 2:23 of the extra session, Tkachuk broke up the middle and finished from the left hash marks, with Seth Jones and Sam Reinhart assisting. Ballgame.

Brady Tkachuk Is Having a Moment

Before Tuesday, Tkachuk had zero goals and one point in six games since Florida acquired him from Ottawa on June 21, according to NHL.com. In the two games since, he has six goals and seven points. That is not a hot streak. That is a weather event.

The history is just as wild. Per NHL.com, he is the third Panthers player with hat tricks in consecutive games, joining Noel Acciari (Dec. 16-20, 2019) and Pavel Bure (Feb. 10-14, 2001), and the first NHL player with consecutive hat tricks since Auston Matthews in February 2024. He also became the second player in franchise history to complete a hat trick in overtime, after Aleksander Barkov did it twice.

"Today was pretty special," Tkachuk said. "To do it in front of this crowd, but of course, it's not just one guy out there. It took a group effort."

He also made it clear he is not treating a hot week as the finish line. "My goal here is to do something special," Tkachuk said. "It's not about the individual stuff." Matthew, meanwhile, stretched his own point streak to seven games, with 11 points in that span, per NHL.com. The Tkachuk family business is booming.

Panthers coach Paul Maurice put it simply. "Those guys who have had great success in their career in big moments can feel it, and they want it," he said. Jones, who had two assists, was even more direct: "He's a true gamer."

Jones played 26:16 and set up both of the final two goals. Schmid made 16 saves on 18 shots for his second straight win, and that was all Florida needed from him on a night when the puck lived in the other end.

Siege by the Numbers

• 39-18: Florida's edge in shots on goal.
• 36 of 39: Shots Merilainen stopped in a losing effort.
• 20: Shots blocked by Vancouver.
• 13: Seconds left in regulation when Tkachuk tied it.
• 7: Points for Tkachuk in his past two games, six goals and one assist.

Florida Rolls, Vancouver Searches

Florida improves to 4-2-2 with 10 points and has won two straight. This was only the Panthers' second home game of the season, and the first one, a 4-1 loss to Minnesota on Oct. 10, did not go nearly as well. Florida's night did come with a cost: Eetu Luostarinen exited midway through the third after going hard into the end boards on a hit from Pettersson that the AP called clean. They host Seattle on Saturday night.

Vancouver falls to 2-6-1 with five points and has lost six straight, the last five to open a six-game road trip. The overtime loss did produce the Canucks' first point since their Oct. 3 win over Calgary, which is the kind of silver lining you only notice when things are bleak. Vancouver also shuffled the roster before puck drop, sending Aatu Raty to Toronto in a trade that brought back forwards Jacob Quillan and Brandon Buhr, per the AP. Malhotra still saw progress. "It was a much more complete game aside from the last 10 minutes," he said. Pettersson agreed: "I don't think we get the bounces right now, but I thought we played well and battled really hard for 60 minutes." The trip ends Saturday in Tampa Bay.

The Heist That Wasn't

This was a heist movie where the crew had the vault open, the getaway car running and the cash in the bag. Then Brady Tkachuk walked in like the plot twist everyone in the theater saw coming except the Canucks. Two games, two natural hat tricks. Somebody check the ice in Sunrise for loose wiring.

Stats from the official box score via ESPN. Game details from the Associated Press; postgame quotes and notes as reported by NHL.com.