The hat tricks cooled off, and Brady Tkachuk got more useful
Fifteen points in nine games, 58 hits and shrinking power-play minutes: Florida's newer Tkachuk is doing the work and has earned the net front back.
Everybody remembers the back-to-back hat tricks. I'd rather talk about the 58 hits, because that's the number that tells you Brady Tkachuk is going to be fine in Sunrise.
He had one point in his first six games as a Panther. Then he went three-and-three: a natural hat trick in Columbus on Oct. 13 and another against Vancouver two nights later, with the overtime winner. That's the part that made every highlight show.
Here's the part that matters more. By our count he has 15 points in nine games since Oct. 13. In the seven games after Vancouver he has two goals and six assists. That's not a cool-off. That's a top-six winger doing his job when the puck stops going in in threes.
Lineup watch: the dirty work
Through 15 games he has 58 hits, per NHL data, second on the cats behind Garnet Hathaway's 62. Hathaway is supposed to do that. Brady does it and still has eight goals.
Last night against Detroit, in a 5-3 loss nobody in coral wants to rewatch, he threw seven hits in more than 19 minutes and set up a goal. He finishes checks on the forecheck so the next defenseman rushes his pass. That's a Ferda shift, every shift.
He also lives where goals live. Early in the season, 11 of his first 25 shots on goal came from high-danger areas, 97th percentile among forwards by the NHL's tracking. He has eight goals on 48 shots now, a 16.7 percent clip. Some of that will come down. The net-front volume won't.
Where I'd push
His power-play minutes are shrinking. By our count he averaged 5.6 power-play minutes in his first seven games and 3.6 in his last seven. Three of his eight goals came with the man advantage, two of them in Columbus with Matthew setting up all three goals that night.
The power play has been the engine since mid-October. Here's how it went from 1-for-28 to a weapon. With Barkov and Marchand still working back from injury, the cats need every body who can stand in front of a goalie and take a crosscheck for it. That's the brother who isn't Matthew.
I get the logic of spreading him out. He's playing 16.6 minutes a night and banging bodies for most of them, so there's a case for keeping him fresh. But a guy who wins the net front should be standing on the net front when the other team is a man down.
It's a Bam Adebayo season so far: nothing pretty, everything necessary. That kind of player gets paid back with touches.
Pabs' read: Chicago is next on Wednesday. Give him five power-play minutes and he scores one.
