Takeaways as Panthers outlast Hurricanes in thrilling 4OT series opener

Matthew Tkachuk has a new favorite goal

We looked destined for an eighth period before Tkachuk finally put everyone to bed.
With 13 seconds left, he won a puck battle along the wall, came out to the hash marks, and beat Andersen before skating to the locker room in walk-off fashion.

“Matty T needs to show up,” a friend of yours truly said during the fifth-period intermission in response to me changing my overtime prediction from Verhagage to the Panthers superstar.

“The longer this goes on, he’s bound to strike,” I said. That’s what happened.

It was his team-leading 17th playoff point and the 204th goal of his career and, Tkachuk said, “my favorite one so far in my life.”

“I hope you and everybody else enjoyed that game,” he told the media, per The Athletic. “Because I see two really good teams fighting it out for every inch. And it’s little stuff, little battles that maybe people don’t realize, but they’re very important, and both teams are doing it all game long. They’re a great team over there. I’m sure both teams are gassed right now. But we’ll use tomorrow to refuel, use the next day to do the same thing, and it’s nice that it’s an 8 o’clock start. We’ll get an extra hour of sleep.”