Florida Panthers wing Matthew Tkachuk has reportedly undergone surgery to repair a torn adductor muscle and sports hernia. Recovery from the procedure could keep him sidelined from the back-to-back Stanley Cup champions until January.
Curiously, Tkachuk has been cagey with reporters about whether or not he would have the surgery, knowing how long of a recovery process it would involve.
He told ESPN's Greg Wyshynski in early August that he was still undecided about undergoing the procedure. Yet NHL Network and Sirius XM insider David Pagnotta reported on Friday that Tkachuk "underwent surgery a few weeks ago." Presumably, that would mean he'd already had surgery while saying that he was undecided about it.
Tkachuk, 27, sustained the injury while playing for Team USA in the international 4 Nations Face-Off tournament that included Canada, Finland and Sweden in mid-February. He gained national notoriety during USA's 3-1 win over Canada, getting into a fight with Brandon Hagel just seconds after the opening face-off.
In that game, Tkachuk suffered the injury that kept him off the ice for the remaining 12 minutes of the contest, though that was unrelated to the fight he had with Hagel. At the time, Tkachuk downplayed the seriousness of the "lower-body injury," but played very little for the remainder of the tournament.
He scored two goals in three games, but played fewer than seven minutes in the championship versus Canada because of the injury.
Additionally, Tkachuk missed the final six weeks of the regular season because of the injury and returned for the Panthers' first-round playoff series with the Tampa Bay Lightning. Overall, he appeared in 52 regular-season games, scoring 22 goals with 35 assists. In the playoffs, he played in all 23 of the Panthers' games, compiling eight goals and 15 assists while playing with the lower-body injury.
After the Panthers defeated the Edmonton Oilers to win their second consecutive Stanley Cup, Tkachuk was more forthcoming about the injury, specifying that it was a torn adductor muscle and sports hernia. As he explained, the adductor muscle had torn from the bone.
“I wouldn’t be here without the trainers and the doctors and those people, and that’s what makes this Cup more special for me is how hard it was just to be out there and to get to the point of playing," Tkachuk told NHL.com.
Tkachuk was traded to the Panthers before the 2022-23 season after playing the first six seasons of his NHL career with the Calgary Flames.
With the injury and subsequent recovery, Tkachuk is eligible to be placed on long-term injured reserve by the Panthers, which would allow the team to exceed the NHL salary cap while he's sidelined.
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