The Florida Panthers may be without one of their stars for a while.
On Monday night during a tense matchup with the Tampa Bay Lightning, All-Star winger Matthew Tkachuk was injured and needed to be helped off the ice.
The play came with 3:09 left in the first period and the Lightning up 3–0. As Tkachuk came across the ice and reached for the puck, Tampa Bay's Nikita Kucherov veered into him and slammed him with a knee-on-knee hit. It was a dangerous play that could be considered dirty.
Tkachuk went down hard and immediately waved to the trainers on the bench. Eventually he had to be helped from the ice while putting no weight on his right leg.
Kucherov was assessed a five-minute major for kneeing and was also ejected with a game misconduct penalty for the hit.
Video of the incident is below.
Nikita Kucherov was assessed a major penalty and a game misconduct for kneeing Matthew Tkachuk pic.twitter.com/uDZRrfUtAB
— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) December 24, 2024
That's really ugly. Kucherov will undoubtedly have to explain himself to the league office this week.
UPDATE: Somehow, Tkachuk returned to the game in the second period.
Matthew Tkachuk is back on the ice and Panthers fans are LOVING it 👏 pic.twitter.com/5ZSR6QtPwL
— Gino Hard (@GinoHard_) December 24, 2024
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Matthew Tkachuk Suffers Ugly Leg Injury on Dangerous Hit From Nikita Kucherov.
