Everybody always talks about how the Wayne Gretzky trade to LA saved the NHL.
That was during August of 1988.
Just a couple weeks shy of 34 years later, there was another trade that saved hockey.
And that was when Matthew Tkachuk was traded to the Florida Panthers.
It’s exactly what hockey needs.
Brother vs brother, pops and grandma in the crowd, absolute fucking mayhem on the ice.
Things were pretty casual for most of the night.
The Panthers were up 3-0 on the Senators at the end of the 2nd period.
Which was to be expected considered Ottawa is pure trash.
But Matthew Tkachuk is one of the all-time shit stirrers in hockey.
He’s the Rat King for a reason.
Nobody knows how to agitate the shit out of their opponent quite like Matthew Tkachuk.
They’re not allowed to fight out there, and that’s by order of Mama Tkachuk.
But they’re at least going to annoy the everliving piss out of each other.
But Brady is also a little shit.
I’d imagine the Tkachuk household was a full blown battle royale every day growing up.
Zack MacEwen doesn’t need to be told twice.
Now here’s the thing–if you come at the Rat King, you best not miss.
So now he has free reign to do whatever he wants.
Apparently he wanted to un-alive either Tim Stutzle or Jake Sanderson.
Matthew tells Brady that Stutzle and Sanderson are dead.
A couple shifts later, it doesn’t look like Matthew was bluffing.
Hits Stutzle along the boards, gets a crack at fighting Sanderson after the hit.
And then as soon as Brady Tkachuk gets out of the box from his minor penalty…
He takes a whack at Bobrovsky to return the favor for Matthew taking a few hacks at Korpisalo.
And then once again, complete and total chaos ensues.
Matthew watches from the penalty box.
Grandma Tkachuk and Big Walt watch from the crowd.
Just mayhem all over the place, and now the refs have finally seen enough.
So the quickest way to put an end to it is to just send everybody to the locker room.
10-minute misconducts for everybody!
The 3rd period penalty log looks like a damn CVS receipt.
That’s over 150 penalty minutes in just the 3rd period alone.
Unfortunately, it was the only period where things really got crazy.
So they ended the game with under 200 penalty minutes on the night.
Not quite enough to make its way into the NHL record books.
What a night for some old time hockey.
Brutal night all around for Ottawa, though.
They’re an awful hockey team.
But hopefully one day they’ll finally turn it around because we need a Tkachuk Bowl in the playoffs.
