"There is no doubt that Calgary Flames forward Matthew Tkachuk has a ton of talent. We saw that with his shootout goal on Frederik Andersen last night.
However, Tkachuk seems to make more headlines with his borderline dirty play than his goal scoring ability. We saw this side of him last night as well.
During a scrum in front of the Flames bench, Tkachuk reached over the boards to give Maple Leafs forward Matt Martin a jab with his stick. He was not penalized for the play and Martin told reporters after the game that he didn't even realized it happened.
«Apparently, I just saw it. I didn't feel it at the time, I guess if he's going to do stuff like that he should probably make it count,» said Martin. «It's whatever, it's child's play. I don't really get involved with that kind of stuff. I just found out about it. Our PR staff told me you wanted to talk to me, I asked why and they showed me the video.»
«That's junior hockey stuff,» said head coach Mike Babcock. «So he'll learn over time. You've got to give Tkachuk credit, he played a good game, he played hard. There's no reason for that stuff.»
Tkachuk is turning into a player much like Brad Marchand, Brendan Gallagher or even Nazem Kadri and will have to learn when to control his emotions. The NHL's Department of Player Safety is hoping to teach him a lesson as they announced that Tkachuk will have a hearing for his actions later today.
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