Tkachuk proving to be chip off the old block
Matthew Tkachuk only broke into the NHL in October.
But to many it looks like the teenager has been around for decades.
“Maybe that’s just some spillover from dad,” Calgary Flames head coach Glen Gulutzan said with a chuckle. The boss is probably right. Yet this Tkachuk is separating himself from his father and longtime NHLer Keith, forging his own path into professional hockey as a fresh-faced rookie who has played basically every game like he’s a human wrecking ball.
And on top of it, Tkachuk is racking up points.
Sitting just behind linemate and Flames leading scorer Mikael Backlund, the 19-year-old left winger has scored 11 goals and added 25 assists for 36 points. He’s currently second on the team in points, which isn’t exactly something he set out to do in October.
“I didn’t make it a goal or anything like that,” Tkachuk said on Thursday following a quick practice before the team headed off to the annual charity poker tournament. “There could be more consistency (in my game), but you feel more comfortable as the games go on.”
The natural comparisons to Keith will always be there (heck, just compare their rookie photos side by side) and, at this point in the season, his progression is almost identical. A little faster, even.
In his first full NHL season (an 83-game campaign in 1992-93), Keith scored 28 goals and added 23 assists for 51 points. The fact that Tkachuk has the potential to equal or surpass his dad’s numbers in his rookie year is impressive, but not surprising and shows how quickly he has adapted to the NHL.
Tkachuk insists that his linemates deserve some of the credit.
“Playing with Backs (Backlund) and Fro (Michael Frolik), they have it ingrained in my head to make the right plays all the time and be responsible in the D-zone like they are,” Tkachuk said. “I’m just trying to do that.”
And you saw it again on Wednesday night. Tkachuk’s timely goal with 4:28 elapsed in the first period came from him making the right play.
Beating Philadelphia captain Claude Giroux off the faceoff, he was able to win the puck to Backlund, who’d cut over to the top of the circle. After Dougie Hamilton’s shot went off a skate and back to Backlund, he passed it to a cruising Tkachuk in front of the Flyers’ net and he chipped it home.
It looked easy. But Tkachuk has the sense to know where to be at the right time.
“He’s such a smart player,” said Gulutzan. “He’s competitive and, in fairness, he’s playing with two veteran 27-, 28-year-olds and they’ve got great chemistry.
“Chucky’s competitiveness and hockey sense, those two guys with the chemistry there has allowed him to put up some numbers.”
In the last four games, Tkachuk has two goals and three assists. From Dec. 19 to Jan. 7, he had a nine-game point streak.
“He’s a very mature, young kid,” Gulutzan added. “None of it is getting to his head and he’s just having a great rookie year.”
FLAMES SIGN BARTKOWSKI
It didn’t take long for the Calgary Flames to make a decision on Matt Bartkowski, inking the defender to a two-year, two-way deal on Thursday.
The 28-year-old practised with the team on Wednesday, arriving from the American Hockey League’s Providence Bruins on a professional tryout offer. Bartkowski played 80 games for the Vancouver Canucks last season under the watch of Gulutzan and has amassed 211 NHL games.
Flames general manager Brad Treliving indicated on Wednesday that this move was based on increasing the team’s depth at defence.
But it also satisfies the NHL requirements for the upcoming Las Vegas expansion draft.
Teams are allowed to protect seven forwards, three defencemen and one goalie or eight skaters and one netminder.
There are also player exposure requirements, including one defenceman who: is under contract in 2017-18; and played 40 or more NHL games the prior season or played in 70 or more NHL games in the two prior seasons.