Brady Tkachuk Turns a Six-Game Drought Into NHL History

Brady Tkachuk scored three straight Florida Panthers goals Thursday, including an overtime winner, for a second natural hat trick in two nights. He had not scored in his first six games after he was traded from Ottawa in June.

Florida paid three first-round picks to put him next to his brother, Matthew, then watched him sit on one assist through six games. He has six goals in the two games since, and the league had not seen natural hat tricks on back-to-back nights since Petri Skriko in 1986.

Brady Tkachuk Scored Florida’s Only Three Goals

Vancouver led 2-0 after a first period in which Florida held 15-6 in scoring chances and still trailed. Liam Ohgren finished the Canucks’ first shot of the night. Elias Pettersson doubled it at 4-on-4. Leevi Merilainen, Tkachuk’s old Ottawa teammate, kept stacking saves until the Panthers’ 32nd shot finally went in.

That shot was Tkachuk from above the right circle at 11:11 of the third, off Aaron Ekblad, with Matthew on the second assist. It was Brady’s fourth goal of the season, and Matthew had helped on all four. Akira Schmid left for an extra skater, and Tkachuk one-timed a Carter Verhaeghe feed at 19:47, 13 seconds left, off the far post. At 2:23 of overtime, on the end of a 40-second shift, he took a Seth Jones pass from the left circle and ended it.

The NHL’s own clip of the winner is the shortest version of the night.

OF COURSE IT'S BRADY TKACHUK 😼

He completes the hat trick and scores the winner in @Energizer overtime! pic.twitter.com/60HBaJql0N

— NHL (@NHL) October 16, 2026

HOW THE 3-2 OVERTIME BROKE

1. 7:23, first period: Ohgren scores on Vancouver’s first shot, from Linus Karlsson, after Florida fails to clear.
2. 17:06, first period: Pettersson snaps a 4-on-4 finish from Filip Chytil, who was playing his first game of the season after a preseason shoulder injury.
3. 11:11, third period: Tkachuk’s wrist shot from above the right circle makes it 2-1, Florida’s 32nd shot, with Ekblad and Matthew Tkachuk assisting.
4. 19:47, third period: With Schmid pulled, Tkachuk one-times Verhaeghe’s pass from the right circle, Jones on the second assist, and ties it with 13 seconds left.
5. 2:23, overtime: Tkachuk finishes from the left circle off Jones, Sam Reinhart on the other helper, for a overtime win against Vancouver.

Jones called him a true gamer and pointed at the work around the net, not only the finishing. Tkachuk, asked about the noise after the winner, kept the individual line short. “Today was pretty special,” he 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.”

Merilainen finished with 36 saves. Schmid had 15, and he stopped every shot after the first period. Florida out-attempted Vancouver 53-26 at 5-on-5 and still needed the extra skater and overtime, because the first 50 minutes had a 2-0 score that did not match the territorial play.

Six Blank Games, Then 8:03 in Columbus

Tkachuk went into Tuesday with no goals and one point in his first six games as a Panther. The lone point was an assist in a 5-3 loss at Buffalo on Monday. Coach Paul Maurice had already said he liked the game and that the power play only needed one bounce to go a certain way for him.

The bounce arrived in a pile. In the second period in Columbus, Tkachuk scored at even strength, then twice on the power play, all three with Matthew on the assist sheet. The NHL called it the first natural hat trick in league history with a sibling assisting on every goal. Brady added one assist of his own for four points. Matthew had five assists, four of them in that second period, a franchise record for one period, and he tied his career highs for points and assists in a game.

TWO NIGHTS ON THE SHEET

That is seven points (six goals, one assist) for Brady in two games, and eight points (six goals, two assists) through eight games with the Panthers. Jones has six assists across the same two nights. Matthew’s point streak is at seven games and 11 points (three goals, eight assists). The Tkachuks became the third pair of brothers in 40 years to each put up four or more points in the same game, after Daniel and Henrik Sedin (last on Nov. 21, 2015) and Peter and Anton Stastny (Feb. 21, 1988).

The Columbus hat trick, in 8:03, was the third-fastest in Panthers history, behind Noel Acciari’s 3:59 on Dec. 20, 2019, and Steve Reinprecht’s 5:11 on Oct. 30, 2009. It was also Brady’s fourth career three-goal game. Thursday made it five. Two nights at this clip is a sample, not a season, and anyone projecting 80 goals from it is reading a small number wrong. The durable part is the brother on the other wing, because that is the variable Ottawa never had.

A Natural Hat Trick Leaves No Room for Anyone Else

A regular hat trick is three goals in a game. A natural hat trick is three in a row by the same player with no goal by anyone else in between. Tuesday, no other Panther or Blue Jacket scored between Brady’s first and third. Thursday, Florida’s only three goals of the night were his, so the overtime winner closed the second natural hat trick in 48 hours.

The Panthers said he is the third player in NHL history to score a natural hat trick in consecutive games. The last man before him was Skriko, a Finnish Vancouver winger, against Calgary on Nov. 18, 1986, and the New York Rangers on Nov. 21, 1986, with a four-goal night in the second game. Skriko added another on Nov. 26 against Los Angeles, three hat tricks in eight days, and finished 1986-87 with four, still the Canucks’ season mark.

Cy Denneny had four-goal games in 1923 for the original Ottawa Senators on Feb. 21 against the Toronto St. Pats and Feb. 24 at Hamilton, the earlier burst sitting under that “third in history” line. Straight hat tricks, natural or not, are less rare: Auston Matthews had them on Feb. 15 and Feb. 17, 2024, and Tkachuk is the first player with consecutive three-goal games since that Toronto pair.

Skriko’s 1986 run came for the same franchise Tkachuk just beat. The Canucks left Sunrise 2-6-1. Forty years apart, the same trick, opposite sweaters.

Florida Spent Three First-Round Picks on a Reunion

On June 21, the Senators sent Tkachuk to Florida after he asked out, a request general manager Steve Staios confirmed. “What changed was a trade request,” Staios said. Tkachuk had two seasons left on the deal he signed in Ottawa on Oct. 14, 2021. He had been captain for five seasons, and he had 59 points (22 goals, 37 assists) in 60 games in 2025-26, then zero points in a four-game first-round sweep by Carolina.

Florida general manager Bill Zito talked about style, the brother, and the person. Matthew had been a Panther since July 22, 2022, and Florida had won the Cup in 2024 and 2025 before a 40-38-4 finish in 2025-26 left it seventh in the Atlantic and out of the playoffs. The return to Ottawa was all picks.

WHAT OTTAWA TOOK BACK

• 2026 first round: The No. 9 pick.
• 2026 first round: The No. 25 pick, moved to Florida from Seattle the same day.
• 2029 first round: A conditional first-round pick.
• 2027 second round: A second-round pick.

At the trade, Tkachuk had 463 points (213 goals, 250 assists) in 572 games. Keith Tkachuk, their father, scored 538 in his own career. The brothers had already been teammates for the United States at the 4 Nations Face-Off in February 2025 and at the 2026 Olympics, where they won gold. Brady called the Panthers the closest group in the league and said the sole focus was winning. For six games, the winning was happening around a winger who could not finish. Then it happened through him, twice, in the most cramped way the sport measures a hat trick.

Who Else Has Done This in a Panthers Sweater?

Only two Panthers had ever scored a hat trick in consecutive games before Thursday: Pavel Bure on Feb. 10 and Feb. 14, 2001, and Noel Acciari on Dec. 16 and Dec. 20, 2019. League public relations listed Tkachuk with them as the only Florida skaters with hat tricks in consecutive games. Bure’s second night was a natural hat trick in a comeback from 2-0. Acciari’s second night was a natural hat trick in 3:59, still the fastest in club history, and it included a penalty shot.

Tkachuk is also the second Panther to complete a hat trick in overtime, after captain Aleksander Barkov, who is out. Florida is scraping points without him and still found a 4-2-2 start because a new winger just scored every goal in a comeback. Maurice, who had refused to panic through the blank week, talked about big-moment players as if the finishing had been waiting.

Those guys who have had great success in their career in big moments can feel it, and they want it.

Paul Maurice, Panthers coach, after the Canucks game

Tkachuk pushed the same idea from the other side of the microphone. “My goal here is to do something special,” he said. “It’s not about the individual stuff. This is great, but there are bigger goals out there not just for myself, but what this group has as well.”

Vancouver Took 17 Shots and Lost in Overtime

The Canucks scored twice in the first period and took 17 shots all night. Coach Manny Malhotra called it a much more complete game aside from the last 10 minutes and still did not have enough. Pettersson said they battled and did not get the bounces. They have lost six straight (0-5-1). Merilainen was the reason it stayed 2-0 as long as it did, and Tkachuk, who had played with him in Ottawa, said as much after the game.

AFTER 8 GAMES

• Panthers: 4-2-2, 10 points, first home win of the season in this one.
• Canucks: 2-6-1, six straight losses, two goals on 17 shots Thursday.
• Goaltending: Merilainen 36 saves; Schmid 15, including every shot after the first period.
• Tkachuk line: Six goals in two games after zero in six.

Florida hosts the Seattle Kraken on Saturday at 6 p.m. ET, then visits Ottawa on Oct. 21. The building that traded him will get the version that just did something Skriko last did in a Canucks sweater in 1986, with Matthew still on the ice and the pick ledger already spent.

Frequently Asked Questions

What Is a Natural Hat Trick in the NHL?

It is three consecutive goals by one player with no goal by anyone else, on either team, in between. A regular hat trick is any three goals in one game, even if teammates or opponents score during the burst. Empty-net and overtime goals count if they stay in that consecutive run, which is how Tkachuk’s extra-attacker strike and his overtime winner on Thursday still formed a natural hat trick.

Who Was Petri Skriko?

Skriko was a Finnish winger, the first Finn to play for the Vancouver Canucks, and he led that club in scoring in 1985-86 and 1988-89. He had four 30-goal seasons in a row from 1985 to 1989, was the first Canuck named NHL Player of the Month (November 1986), and still holds the franchise mark with four hat tricks in a single season, set in 1986-87.

How Many Career Hat Tricks Does Brady Tkachuk Have?

Five, after Thursday. The Columbus game was his fourth in the NHL and the second of his career against the Blue Jackets. He was 26 when Florida got him and turned 27 on Sept. 16, 1999 birthdate, so the two-night burst is his fifth three-goal game across nine seasons with Ottawa and Florida.

Which Panthers Have Finished a Hat Trick in Overtime?

Aleksander Barkov did it twice, on Dec. 15, 2018, and April 19, 2022. Tkachuk is the second player in franchise history to close a hat trick in overtime. Barkov, the captain, was out of the Vancouver game, so the club’s only three goals that night came from the winger it added in June.

Have Brady and Matthew Tkachuk Played Together Before Florida?

Yes. They were teammates for the United States at the 4 Nations Face-Off in February 2025 and at the 2026 Winter Olympics, where they won gold, the Americans’ first since 1980. Brady had five points (three goals, two assists) in six Olympic games, and Matthew had six assists in the six games, before they shared an NHL bench for the first time this season.