Panthers Log Natural Hat Tricks in Three Straight Games, Verhaeghe Joins Rare Club

Florida has never been the type of team that hands out nights like this, so it's worth slowing down to appreciate what just happened. The Panthers became the first NHL team to get natural hat tricks in three consecutive games. Brady Tkachuk started the run against Columbus and Vancouver, and Carter Verhaeghe finished the streak on Saturday against Seattle, when he tallied three goals of his own.

A natural hat trick means one player scores three consecutive goals for his team with no other scorer from either side in between. It's a sharp, specific feat, and it's rarely something a team can plan for. Getting one from a single franchise in three straight games is a different level of production, and it says plenty about how Florida's top scorers are finishing chances right now.

Tkachuk's back-to-back run is its own story

Tkachuk's part of this is arguably the more unusual piece. He's the first Panthers skater since Noel Acciari and Pavel Bure to score consecutive hat tricks in franchise history. What makes it stand out is that he's the only Panther to record back-to-back natural hat tricks. Consecutive hat tricks are uncommon enough, but natural ones require a player to keep scoring without interruption, so Tkachuk's two games carry extra weight.

Elliotte Friedman summed up the streak on X, noting that Florida is the first NHL team to have three straight games with a natural hat trick. Tkachuk's last two came in that run, and Verhaeghe added the third. That framing matters because it turns three individual nights into one team-level milestone.

Verhaeghe's fifth career hat trick

Verhaeghe didn't become the only player in league history with three consecutive natural hat tricks, but he still had a memorable night. It was his fifth career hat trick and his fourth in a Panthers sweater. That total puts him in a steady pattern of big offensive games, and it's a reminder that he's far more than a depth scorer when the puck is bouncing his way.

The three-goal game also added to Florida's record book. Verhaeghe is one of only three players in franchise history to score four goals in a game, which is the rarer accomplishment.

Verhaeghe shares the Panthers' four-goal club

On Apr. 1, 2023, Verhaeghe scored four goals in a 7-0 win over Columbus. That game put him alongside Pavel Bure and Mark Parrish as the only Panthers to score four in a single game. The franchise has never had a five-goal game, and that's the number fans still chase.

Parrish's game came first. He was a 12-year veteran who spent two seasons with Florida, and he scored four goals against the Chicago Blackhawks in a 7-3 win on Oct. 30, 1998. He was the first player to record a four-goal game in franchise history. Bure followed with a four-goal game on Jan. 1, 2000, in a 7-5 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning. He then repeated the feat on Feb. 20, 2001, in a 7-3 win over the Atlanta Thrashers.

That makes three four-goal games across three seasons early in the franchise's history, followed by a 22-year wait for the next one. Verhaeghe's 2023 game ended that drought, and it's a reminder of how rare the feat is even for a team that has had productive scorers.

How rare is a four-goal game?

According to NHL.com statistics, 325 players have scored four goals in a single game. Verhaeghe, Bure and Parrish are the only Panthers on that list. If Verhaeghe scores four again, he'd become the second Florida player with multiple four-goal games, joining Bure. He'd also be the 89th player in league history with more than one such game.

The career leaders set a very high bar. Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux are tied with 13 four-goal games apiece, and that mark sits atop the NHL's multi-goal games list. Joe Malone was the first player to reach double digits in this category, recording 12 four-goal games between 1918 and 1924. Those numbers reflect a different era of scoring, but they also show how few players have ever sustained that kind of output.

What to watch next

The natural hat trick streak is a fun headline, but the bigger question is whether it reflects a stretch of sustained finishing or a few games where everything broke right. Teams that get multiple hat tricks in a short span often have shooters getting clean looks from the same structures, and that tends to be repeatable only when the chances keep coming. If Florida's top forwards keep generating high-quality chances, this run could become a real signal about how dangerous this group can be.

For Tkachuk and Verhaeghe, the next task is keeping this pace going without letting the spotlight change how they play. The Panthers have a clear identity when their scorers are sharp, and this three-game run shows what that looks like when everything clicks.