Matthew Tkachuk explains Panthers' ‘fun tradition' of shooting rats at Brad Marchand
The Panthers shooting rats at Brad Marchand after wins has become a tradition for the team. A few of the former Boston Bruins captain's teammates wait for him before he gets off the ice to shoot the plastic rodents.
That tradition continued when Florida defeated the Carolina Hurricanes in Game 5 to punch its ticket to a third straight Stanley Cup Final with a chance to repeat as champions. After Marchand did his on-ice interview with TNT, Matthew Tkachuk, Evan Rodrigues and Aleksander Barkov were waiting with their rats.
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While Tkachuk isn't sure how the tradition came to be, he explained during a recent appearance on 'The Pat McAfee Show' how it's become part of their postgame process.
'I don't actually recall how it started because I wasn't playing in the regular season,' Tkahuck said. 'I normally go out, leave the ice second-to-last with Barky after a win and once it came to Game 1 of the playoffs, Marchy picked up a few rats — maybe for his kids or people that were asking.
'I think E-Rod shot the first one at him, and then Barky was like, 'If you're going to shoot one, then I'll pass one nicely into you.' Then, when I came back, we started firing them at him,' he continued. 'So, it's been a fun tradition and people seem to like it. It fits what our team is all about: Having fun and not taking anything too seriously.'
It's something that's made coach Paul Maurice laugh.
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'I will tell you, they're shooting them as hard as they can. They're not flipping them at him. There's shrapnel around there, and I didn't have any equipment on,' he told reporters recently, via ESPN's Greg Wyshynski. 'I was just trying to get off the ice. Like, it hurt. But they're eating them up at them, and he's trying to get out of the way. It is funny as hell.'
Marchand added: 'It's just one of those things that happens organically. We don't overthink it. We just have fun out there.'
While the Panthers like to keep it loose, they know the job isn't done. They have a chance to repeat as Stanley Cup champions in a 2024 rematch with the Edmonton Oilers.
'We haven't accomplished anything yet,' Marchand told reporters after Florida's Game 5 win. 'The toughest team we're gonna face is coming up next. If you don't do the job there, you didn't win anything. We're excited, but it's just like any other round. There's a huge job to do moving forward and we have to prepare for that now.'
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