Brady Tkachuk becomes third NHL player with natural hat tricks in consecutive games

Brady Tkachuk has joined one of the NHL’s smallest statistical clubs after scoring a natural hat trick in consecutive games for the Florida Panthers.

Tkachuk completed the feat Thursday, October 15, with an overtime goal in Florida’s 3-2 victory over the Vancouver Canucks. Two nights earlier, he scored three consecutive goals in the second period of a 7-3 win over the Columbus Blue Jackets.

The NHL lists Tkachuk as only the third player in league history to produce natural hat tricks in back-to-back games. The two earlier players were Cy Denneny, who accomplished it in 1923, and Petri Skriko, who did so in 1986.

A regular hat trick means three goals in one game. A natural hat trick is more specific: one player scores three consecutive goals for his team, without another player interrupting the sequence. That makes Tkachuk’s accomplishment a two-game achievement built from two separate scoring runs, rather than simply six goals across two appearances.

The first hat trick also carried an unusual family connection. Matthew Tkachuk assisted on all three of Brady’s goals against Columbus, a first in NHL history for a brother to set up every goal in a natural hat trick, according to NHL.com’s account of the game. Matthew finished that game with five assists.

Against Vancouver, Brady scored twice in the third period before adding the winner in overtime. The result gave Florida its second consecutive victory and moved the Panthers to a 4-2-2 record, according to the NHL game recap.

The scoring burst significantly changed Tkachuk’s early-season production. NHL.com reported that he had no goals and one assist in his first six games with Florida before producing six goals and one assist over the next two games. He was tied for fifth in the league with six goals after eight games, three behind league leader Kirill Kaprizov.

The timing matters for Florida beyond the record book. The Panthers began the season without veteran forwards Aleksander Barkov and Brad Marchand available, and NHL.com said the team had increasingly used the Tkachuk brothers together. Their recent production gives Florida another high-impact combination while the club manages that early-season lineup situation.

The Panthers are scheduled to host the Seattle Kraken at Amerant Bank Arena on Saturday, October 17. That game will show whether Tkachuk’s six-goal surge continues, but the historical milestone is already secure: only two players in more than a century of NHL history had previously produced natural hat tricks in consecutive games.