Brady Tkachuk Makes Panthers History With Back-to-Back Natural Hat Tricks

Brady Tkachuk needed seven games to score his first goal for Florida. It took him only eight to make the Panthers' record book, and he did it in a way that's hard to script. Down 2-0 to the Vancouver Canucks, Tkachuk scored twice in the third period, the second with just 13 seconds left to tie it. He then carried the momentum into overtime, had the period's first big scoring chance, and buried the winner at 2:23.

Two natural hat tricks in a row

The three goals against Vancouver were Tkachuk's second straight natural hat trick, following the three he scored in the second period against the Columbus Blue Jackets. Back-to-back hat tricks in Florida aren't unheard of, but the detail that matters here is the "natural" part. Tkachuk is the first Panthers player to record two natural hat tricks in consecutive contests. That distinction separates a pair of big nights from a streak built on the same kind of scoring.

The NHL's own account captured the moment on social media after the Columbus game, and the Vancouver follow-up carried the same theme: "Another night, another hat trick for Brady Tkachuk." Those posts were the league amplifying what the building already knew. He has been the most dangerous finisher on the roster for two straight nights.

Pavel Bure still sets the franchise standard

Hall of Famer Pavel Bure remains the benchmark. He played parts of four seasons in Florida, scoring 152 goals in 223 games and recording 10 hat tricks. Nearly half of his 21 career three-goal games came in a Panthers sweater, which tells you how much the Russian Rocket lived in that building.

Bure was also the first skater to record hat tricks in back-to-back games, on Feb. 10, 2001, against the Atlanta Thrashers, and again four nights later, on Feb. 14, 2001, against the Phoenix Coyotes. The first of those was a four-goal game, with a goal in every period, including two in the third. The second was a comeback: Florida trailed 2-0 before Bure scored twice in the second and then added the first third-period goal for a natural hat trick. Bure later recorded two more hat tricks that March. Tkachuk's run is a different shape, because his two natural hat tricks came in consecutive games with no gap between them, but the comeback theme is familiar.

Noel Acciari's quieter entry in the record book

Noel Acciari is the other name on the list, and his story is a good reminder that hat tricks come from unexpected places. An undrafted journeyman, he scored three career hat tricks, all with the Panthers across a three-year stint from 2019 to 2022. In 127 games with Florida he scored 27 goals, and he became only the second skater in team history to record back-to-back hat tricks.

His first came on Dec. 16, 2019, against the Ottawa Senators: one goal in the first period and two in the second, but no natural hat trick. Four nights later, against the Dallas Stars, he did it properly. Two second-period goals, both set up by Vincent Trocheck and Jonathan Huberdeau, were followed by a shorthanded penalty shot that completed the natural hat trick. Acciari's pair is the closer comparison for Tkachuk in terms of the back-to-back structure, while Bure's pair is the one that defines the franchise.

Where Tkachuk fits in the league picture

The announcers noted that Tkachuk is the first NHL player to record hat tricks in consecutive games since Auston Matthews did so in February 2024. That's a useful benchmark, because it puts his streak in the company of elite goal scorers rather than just Florida's history. Consecutive hat tricks are rare for a simple reason: a player has to be heavily involved in two separate games in a short window, and the match-ups and power-play time have to cooperate both times.

The start to Tkachuk's season was the slowest of his career. Heading into the Vancouver game, he had yet to find the net with any consistency. Two games and six goals later, he has seven points and has become Florida's hottest scorer. That's a turnaround that changes how the Panthers' top six looks on paper, and it shifts the question from whether he'll keep scoring to whether he can sustain this heat over a full stretch.

Here's my read: the most useful thing to watch next is his shot selection and how often he gets into the high-danger areas that produced these goals. If the chances keep coming, the hat tricks look less like a streak and more like a player who has finally found his rhythm in Florida. Watch the next few games for the same kind of net-front presence that carried this run.