October 16, 2026
Thursday night in the NHL belonged to the hat tricks and the late finishes. Reuters reported that Brady Tkachuk scored twice in the final nine minutes of regulation and then completed his second straight natural hat trick 2:23 into overtime, giving the Florida Panthers a 3-2 come-from-behind win over the Vancouver Canucks in Sunrise. In Las Vegas, Mark Stone scored three times in the third period alone as the Golden Knights buried Calgary 6-2. And around the rest of the league, the theme was extra hockey: five of the night's eleven games needed overtime or a shootout to settle.
Tkachuk, Again — Back-to-Back Hat Tricks
Tkachuk is the first NHL player since Toronto's Auston Matthews in February 2024 to record a hat trick in back-to-back games, Reuters reported. He is the third Panther to do it, after Noel Acciari and Pavel Bure, and only the second to finish one off in overtime, after Aleksander Barkov. All three of his goals on Thursday were natural — consecutive, with nobody else scoring in between — and they turned a 2-0 third-period deficit into a win.
Florida's comeback started with Tkachuk one-timing a wrist shot past Vancouver goaltender Leevi Merilainen with 8:49 left, set up by an Aaron Ekblad drop pass. With 13 seconds left in regulation and the goalie pulled, he forced a bouncing puck through traffic to tie it. In overtime, he ended it point-blank on Merilainen. Akira Schmid stopped 15 shots for Florida in his second straight start, with Jacob Markstrom still day-to-day with an undisclosed injury, and Seth Jones added two assists as the Panthers won consecutive games for the first time this season.
For Vancouver, it was a night that slipped away twice. Liam Ohgren and Elias Pettersson scored to build the 2-0 lead, and Merilainen was excellent, finishing with 36 saves — but the Canucks took their sixth straight loss (0-5-1) and fell to 0-4-1 on a six-game road trip. Letting a two-goal lead die in the final nine minutes, against the one skater everyone in the building knew was hunting a hat trick, is the kind of loss that follows a team home.
Stone's Third Period, and a Rout in Newark
The league's other hat trick came at T-Mobile Arena, where Mark Stone scored three third-period goals and Jack Eichel had a short-handed goal and two assists in the Golden Knights' 6-2 win over Calgary. Ivan Barbashev tied his career high with three assists, Carter Hart made 28 saves, and Vegas improved to 7-2-0 and 14 points, the best mark in the NHL. We covered that game in full in our Golden Knights–Flames report; the short version is that Vegas scored 26 seconds in and never really let Calgary breathe.
The night's biggest blowout came in Newark, where the New Jersey Devils scored four second-period goals — two of them by Luke Hughes — and routed the New York Rangers 7-1, Reuters reported. A rivalry game turning into a running clock is rare enough; doing it with a defenseman driving the offense made it worse for the Rangers, who were never in it after the first intermission.
Extra Time Everywhere Else
In Saint Paul, Matt Boldy scored his fifth career hat trick and added an assist as Minnesota held off St. Louis 5-4. Kirill Kaprizov scored his third goal in two games and added two assists — he has six goals and five assists on a five-game point streak — and Jesper Wallstedt made 21 saves for the Wild, who have won three of four. Robert Thomas had a goal and an assist for the Blues, Cam Fowler collected three assists, and Joel Hofer made 33 saves in the loss.
Chicago beat Winnipeg 4-3 in overtime, with Frank Nazar and Ryan Donato scoring for the Blackhawks, Spencer Knight making 31 saves, and Patrick Kane adding two assists on the night he set the American assists record — the milestone we covered in our Blackhawks–Jets report. Neal Pionk had a goal and two assists for the Jets, who rallied from two down to earn a point.
Tampa Bay beat Seattle 4-3 in overtime on Victor Hedman's goal at 2:07 of the extra period. Brandon Hagel scored twice, Ilya Mikheyev recorded his 100th career goal, and Andrei Vasilevskiy made 24 saves as the Lightning improved to 4-0-0 at home and 9-0-2 all-time against the Kraken. Matty Beniers registered his 200th career point in the loss. Ottawa edged the Islanders 2-1 in a shootout on Shane Pinto's lone shootout goal, Buffalo beat Toronto 5-4 in overtime, Detroit held off Philadelphia 2-1, and Utah won 4-2 in Edmonton.
San Jose closed the late slate with a 3-2 shootout win in Nashville. Alex Nedeljkovic made 32 saves and kept the Predators scoreless through overtime and the shootout, Macklin Celebrini scored the shootout's only goal, and Mason Marchment and Will Smith scored in regulation for the Sharks. Nashville nearly stole it: Steven Stamkos tied the game with under a second left in regulation, Ryan O'Reilly also scored, and Juuse Saros made 30 saves — but the Predators lost their third straight (0-1-2), and a tying goal that dramatic deserved a better ending than three straight shootout misses.
What Thursday Told Us
Two weeks into the season, the table is starting to sort itself. Vegas sits on top of the league, Florida has found the comeback gear that defined its championship runs, and the Devils look like the Metropolitan's early problem. At the other end, Calgary (1-6-0) and Vancouver (0-5-1 in its last six) are digging holes in a Pacific Division that will not wait for them.
The hat tricks are the headline, but the pattern underneath matters more: on a single Thursday night, five games went past regulation and two more were one-goal games into the third period. October hockey is supposed to be sloppy. This October, it is mostly just close — and on nights like this one, it is decided by the stars. Tkachuk and Stone made sure of that.
Sources · 3 sources
Reporting based on coverage from Reuters and The Associated Press.
