Matthew Tkachuk and the Florida Panthers Are Their Own Worst Enemy Right Now

Do not get it twisted: Despite the naysayers, despite whatever you think about how they've handled player transactions and coaches, despite their annoying-but-dare-I-say-growing-on-me social media presence, the Vegas Golden Knights deserve every bit of their success.

People are categorizing their success as some kind of scrappy story, but that's simply not true. They owned the best record in the Western Conference when the regular season ended and were in a playoff spot for most of the year despite being hit hard by injuries.

What they excel at is having an effect on their opponents that one can only describe as the banana peel in Mario Kart. The Knights seem to bring out the worst in the best players on any opposing team.

They made Dallas Stars captain Jamie Benn take the stupidest penalty of his life when it mattered most, and now they're making Matthew Tkachuk take three misconduct penalties and rack up 36 PIMs through two games.

Vegas has handily won both games 5-2, 7-2, and Tkachuk—the Panthers' clutch factor throughout the playoffs—only has one goal to show.

Florida, who knocked out the best regular-season team in NHL, overcame a highly powered Maple Leafs and swept a strong Hurricanes team in the Eastern Conference Final, is definitely the underdog. And something needs to change.

Down 2-0, Panthers head coach Paul Maurice was asked at practice Wednesday if Tkachuk needs to give more in Game 3.

"Like, more misconducts?" he said. "I think he's got that covered."

Maurice's hilarity has been one of the most refreshing aspects of the 2023 playoffs, and two of those three misconduct calls looked weak. Regardless, the officials obviously want none of Tkachuk's nonsense.

As silly as the punishments may seem—especially the light flicking of a rubber rat into the boards—it's clear the officials want none of it and you don't want to lose a Cup Final over it.

So, what do the Panthers have to do to pull a win out and get back into this fight?

Take it from someone on the sidelines who has never appeared in a Stanley Cup playoff game: Just chill out, man.

It all starts with Tkachuk, who was a Conn Smythe favorite until Florida went down 0-2 in the series. His recent rise to fame is so awesome because he contains multitudes. It's not like he just woke up after scoring all those clutch goals that got the Panthers to the Final and decided to blow it.

He is Florida's Sagittarius rat king and he's got to be himself. Lucky for the Panthers, Radko Gudas is expected to play on Friday, and that should help Tkachuk focus on the goal-scoring aspect of his game knowing his teammate will bring the rat king activities.

That goes for the rest of the team as well. Vegas is 9-0 when scoring a power-play goal this postseason, so the best strategy here would be to stay out of the penalty box.

The point of this all is the good juju was once on the Panthers' side. They'd earned it, pouncing on any misstep their opponents made until the Cup Final, but much of their success has relied on opponents making consequential mistakes in the first place.

What do you do against an opponent that appears to make no errors? You have to create your own magic. If anyone can do that, it's a dialed-in Tkachuk; if anyone can't do that, it's a Tkachuk who is in the penalty box for an entire period.

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Another thing about the Golden Knights is that they have a knack for crushing a goalie's dreams. Again, it's almost like this team going up 2-0 in the Stanley Cup Final is good or something.

No one including the Panthers expected Sergei Bobrovsky to pop off the way he did this postseason, which is why Florida didn't start with him in net. But other than Tkachuk, the Russian netminder has been the reason this team has held on to make it to the Final. He's leading the playoffs through 16 games, with 18.95 goals saved above expected.

Game 2 was far and away his worst performance of the playoffs, the only time he's recorded a negative goals saved above expected at -2.62, per MoneyPuck.com. The thing is, Alex Lyon coming in obviously didn't help as the team lost 7-2. The defense was atrocious, reminiscent of some of its regular-season performances that had us all worried about this team in the first place.

Bobrovsky's one bad display came at the worst time, but punishing him for it just isn't going to end with the Panthers winning the Cup. Start him confidently and pray the defense doesn't implode around him.

As for the Panthers' defense? Thoughts and prayers.

And as the Vegas Golden Knights keep winning games by an embarrassing margin and proving their imaginary haters wrong, one thing is clear: They are not going to do the Panthers any favors.

Florida needs to focus on itself, Tkachuk needs to be a good rat and, for the love of God, keep playing Bobrovsky.

When it comes to this Vegas team, though, I'm starting to think none of it matters.