Matthew Tkachuk is off to one of the hottest starts of his NHL career, with 28 points in the Florida Panthers’ first 20 games. The 28-year-old has four goals and 24 assists, giving him a six-point cushion over teammate Seth Jones, who has 22 points. Although Tkachuk won’t be in the running for the team’s goal-scoring title, with Sam Reinhart the current leader with 11 lamplighters, he’s on pace for 17 goals and 118 points, which would be a new franchise record.
Matthew Tkachuk comes close to Sam Reinhart’s Panthers record
With a great start to the season, Tkachuk unfortunately came two points shy of a different Cats record that Reinhart actually owns, which is the most points in the Panthers' first 20 games of a season. What's interesting is that in 2024-25, when he tallied 30 points in 20 games, he finished the year with 39 goals and 81 points in 79 games.
These statistics came just one season after he scored 57 goals, almost tying Pavel Bure’s record of 59, and finished with 94 points. That year, Reinhart had 13 goals and 12 assists for 25 points through the first 20 games. Meanwhile, when he set the Florida record, he had 15 goals and 15 assists in 20 games in 2024-25.
How Tkachuk's 2026-27 statistics stack up in Panthers history
For perspective, in 2021-22, when Jonathan Huberdeau became the first Panthers player to score more than 100 points in a single season, he began that campaign with seven goals and 20 points in 20 games. At the moment, Tkachuk is eight points ahead of Huberdeau’s total through 20 games, when he established the single-season points record.
In Tkachuk’s first season with the Panthers, he set a new personal best by tallying 109 points in 2022-23. He tallied 40 goals and 69 assists that season and is surprisingly already beating his start from that campaign, but by a single point. That season, Tkachuk had 27 points in the first 20 games, with nine goals and 18 assists.
For fun, we did a deeper dive into the Panthers' record book. The best points total through the team's first 42 games, which would be the halfway point of the 2026-27 season, belongs to Huberdeau. In 2021-22, he had 16 goals and 58 points, while collecting 17 goals and 57 points in 2019-20. It will be interesting to see if Tkachuk can match or surpass the totals set by Huberdeau.
In addition, Reinhart owns the record for most goals in the team’s first 42 games of a single season, surpassing Bure’s best total from 1999-2000 by a single goal, with 31 in 2023-24.
Tkachuk is one of the biggest cogs in the Panthers’ offense, and his hot start after last year’s injuries is a welcome sight. The milestones are fun to follow, but with Florida still chasing teams in the standings, turning those points into wins is what matters most.
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