Tkachuk impresses as he pulls Florida Panthers into the postseason

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When he was the coach in Winnipeg, Paul Maurice got an eyeful of Matthew Tkachuk. Mostly, he did not like what he saw.

“This was Winnipeg-Calgary right?” recalled Maurice, now behind the bench of the Panthers. “I didn’t say many nice things about him or to him. I don’t talk to players on the bench but if he could hear what I was thinking it wasn’t very kind.”

Now Tkachuk plays for Maurice and is Florida’s top player. He had three assists and nine hits in a 4-2 victory over the Maple Leafs on Tuesday and leads the NHL with 14 points during the playoffs.

The second game of the second-round series is Thursday at Scotiabank Arena.

“There has been a maturation to his game,” Maurice said. “In the second half of the season he stayed out of the penalty box and understood that he could drive play with his physicality and realized how important he was on the ice for our team. His reputation doesn’t match his last 43 games from Jan. 1 on.

“He has just been pure production and compete.”

Drafted by Calgary in the first round in 2016, Tkachuk has always been a fine and rugged player but has since made the leap to elite. He had a career-high 109 points during the 2022-23 regular season and reached 40 goals for the second successive year.

He is 25 and spent his first six seasons with the Flames but decided not to re-sign last summer and was traded to Florida in a blockbuster deal for Jonathan Huberdeau and MacKenzie Weegar.

“When it came to that decision, it wasn’t just this year or the short term that I was thinking about,” Tkachuk said. “I wanted to put myself in a position to be on a playoff-contending team every season, hopefully for the rest of my career.

“The belief was definitely there. The talent this team had when I played against them was high end. My first day skating with them I realized it was way better than I ever expected.”

After the trade, Tkachuk signed an eight-year contract with the Panthers worth US$76-million and pretty much dragged the Panthers into the postseason with him.

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Toronto had no answer for Tkachuk in Game 1 of their best-of-seven series and will have to figure out how to contain him if it is to win. Together, Tkachuk and linemates Sam Bennett and Nick Cousins contributed two goals and four assists.

Florida was out of the playoffs on March 29 when it came to Toronto and defeated the Maple Leafs in overtime. It went 5-1-1 the rest of the way and captured the second wildcard position in the Eastern Conference by one point.

In the first round, the Panthers won the last three to stun the Bruins, the league’s best team, in seven games. Now they started the second round with an impressive performance to beat Toronto.

“Everybody talks about the season the Bruins had, but Toronto wasn’t far behind,” Tkachuk said. “It is a similar series and a similar mindset for us. In my opinion, of all the teams that are left the Maple Leafs had the best year.”

Toronto finished second to Boston in the Atlantic Division and eliminated third-place Tampa in six games in the opening round. It was the team’s first series win since 2004 and much celebrated but Tkachuk and Co. do not appear to be an easy mark.

There was a time when Tkachuk was overly emotional and it cost him on the ice. He still has the occasional blowout but they are fewer and farther between.

On Tuesday he was laid out by Luke Schenn, Morgan Rielly and Jake McCabe and he popped up each time and did not retaliate. That shows real growth in a player who once pulled the hair of Edmonton’s Kailer Yamamoto during a fracas.

The guy that Maurice has come to adore is no longer that person.

“He is the exact opposite of what you see on the ice,” Maurice said. “The thing that shocked the hell of me about him was his personality. The first week he was in Florida he took all the trainers out and he treats the bus driver and flight attendants well, too. He cares about his teammates. He is a special young man.”