Brad Marchand's mid-game DQ Blizzard, Matthew Tkachuk's revenge and more Hurricanes-Panthers notes

New York Times

25-05-2025

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — We're going to take this off-day opportunity to be the bearers of bad news about a situation that, conservatively, is one of the five most interesting things to take place in the NHL's Eastern Conference final this year.
It is highly unlikely that Florida Panthers winger Brad Marchand was actually eating a Dairy Queen Blizzard during the second intermission of his team's 6-2 win over the Carolina Hurricanes in Game 3 on Saturday.
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After the game, Marchand was talking to Sportsnet's Kyle Bukauskas about Florida's off-day trip in Raleigh, N.C., to, yes, Dairy Queen. At the end of the interview, Sportsnet cut to a split-screen of Marchand eating something with a spoon in the locker room ahead of the third period.
Neither what he is eating nor the vessel he is eating it from is visible. It seemed to be an obvious joke, even with a solid sell job by the reporter and the player.
'No chance you were fueling with a Blizzard there, were you?' Bukauskas asked.
'That's a little chocolate chip cookie dough Blizzard right there,' Marchand said. 'You can't beat it. It's the best dessert in the world. So I'd better get a lifetime free supply of Dairy Queen now. Thank you, fellas.'
Marchand's sign-off: 'DQ, baby.'
"It's the best dessert in the world" 😋
Brad Marchand joins @sportsnetkyle to discuss the Panthers' Game 3 win and his love for Dairy Queen. pic.twitter.com/J0vFM8afKz
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) May 25, 2025
Lots of players eat peanut butter with a spoon during intermissions, mind you. But the thought that it could be ice cream? It turned into enough of a thing, as is too often the case here — we're looking in the direction of Louis 'spicy pork and broccoli' Domingue — for coach Paul Maurice to be asked about it on Sunday.
(Again, this is a team that just went up 3-0 on its opponent. The mood was high.)
So, Paul, was Marchand actually eating ice cream during a break in a professional sporting event?
'I know he said it,' Maurice said. 'I'm just not sure that makes it a fact. Do we have video evidence? This is a conspiracy theory.'
That led to Maurice throwing the Panthers' 'ice cream aficionado' general manager, Bill Zito, under the bus.
'Maybe that comes from him. Maybe he green-lighted it. There's a story. Bill Zito's feeding the guys ice cream in between periods. I know where he got it, too. I know the company he uses. This is deep. There's lot of different angles on this story.'
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All due respect to Maurice, but there's probably just the one. He also said he's more of a cherry/raspberry guy himself. Hey, now you know.
And regardless, this should secure Marchand that DQ sponsorship. He's a certified treat boy. You love to see it.
If this series ends the way it's tracking, one of its enduring images will be Panthers winger Matthew Tkachuk following Carolina center Sebastian Aho down the ice, checking him into the boards, throwing him to the ice and landing some punches as the rest of the Hurricanes stood by and did nothing. In the immediate aftermath, Tkachuk taunted Aho from the penalty box.
The context is that Aho injured Panthers first-liner Sam Reinhart with a low hit in Game 2. With Reinhart watching from the press box, when the game got out of hand, Tkachuk got his revenge — though he stopped short of calling it that.
'I don't really look at, like, intent or intimidation at all,' Tkachuk said. 'It's just sticking up for teammates. We're a family in there. And you know, it could've happened to anybody. There's probably 20 guys racing to be the guy to stick up for a teammate like that. That's just how our team's built. That's why we're successful. It's why we're a family.
'And if something happens to one of our teammates — I don't think the rest of us were too thrilled at that play in Game 2. But it is what it is. It's done with. And the only way we can get him back is by winning the series. It's one more.'
.@Sportsnet highlights maybe the most significant portion of this game and no it's not any of the 6 goals.
The Panthers didn't let the Aho hit on Reinhart slide. Tkachuk doesn't forget. pic.twitter.com/EY2GN1PvLG
— Mike Cugno (@MikeCugnoCBS4) May 25, 2025
Hurricanes coach Rod Brind'Amour said his team 'probably did' need to do more to stand up for Aho.
'There's a fine line there, obviously, but when a game is out of hand, (you) don't want to start advocating for that kind of hockey necessarily,' Brind'Amour said. 'But yes, we needed to do a better job of that in that situation, the score being what it was.'
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Hurricanes winger Taylor Hall, who was not on the ice at the time, called it 'a tough look' but said avoiding the penalty box was also a priority — something Brind'Amour himself has stressed at various points throughout the series. Of course, as Tkachuk pummeled Aho, the score was 6-1 and the Hurricanes were nine minutes, 10 seconds away from going down 3-0.
'We're a very cohesive team and we love each other, and we'll battle for each other to no end,' Hall said. 'I have no doubt that the rest of the series that we're gonna (be more aware).'
Carolina's collapse started with a turnover by Taylor Hall in a 1-1 game 1:29 into the third period. On Sunday, the 33-year-old winger — who'd been a great fit for the Hurricanes since arriving via trade in January — owned up to the mistake
'Yeah, it was just a bad play, a play I'd love to have back,' he said. 'And at that point in the game, we're in a good spot. And going backhand in the middle of the ice with two guys surrounding you is probably not the right play. Learn from it. But yeah, those things can't happen.
'We're going to give our best tomorrow. Whenever we've been up in a series on a team and have a chance to eliminate them, it's always the hardest game. So that's what we're gonna put forward. I think that we have a lot of belief in our room, honestly, and up until that turnover last night, I think that belief was really starting to grow.
'Obviously what happened in the third kind of just snowballed. But for a good portion of the game there, we were playing how we wanted to and had guys in our lineup, young guys that were really contributing and playing well. … We're playing for our season.'
After the game, Brind'Amour blamed 'bad decision-making' for the collapse and complimented the four rookies in Carolina's lineup while saying they 'can't be some of your better players.'
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'There's a couple guys in there that I don't think came to play the way they needed to at this type of time of year,' Brind'Amour said.
Given the context, it seemed that he could've been alluding to (among others) Hall. And given the context, Hall agreed.
'He's not wrong,' Hall said. 'I have to do better. I have to find a way to play better, to create, to get in their zone and play things the right way. That's really all it is. We had a lot of players play well last night and do some really good things for us. And unfortunately, I was one of those guys that was on the wrong end of that.'
Reinhart hasn't been ruled out for Monday's Game 4, though Maurice didn't sound overly optimistic about him returning to the lineup.
'He's not cleared, but he hasn't been ruled out either,' Maurice said. 'I know that sounds a little bit ambiguous, but it's not. It's exactly where he's at. We're hopeful that it's not long-term.'
A Selke Trophy finalist this season alongside linemate Aleksander Barkov, Reinhart also led the team with 43 goals, giving him 100 since the start of the 2023-24 season.
Given how the series has gone, it's easy to imagine Florida erring on the side of caution and allowing Reinhart as much recovery time as possible from his lower-body injury. Replacement Jesper Boqvist ably stepped into Reinhart's spot on the first line with Barkov and Evan Rodrigues, making a beautiful move on a feed from Barkov to break a 1-1 tie. That was the goal that opened the floodgates.
Reinhart, too, found a way to contribute; he fired the Panthers up with a pregame lineup read.
'He was around the whole day and did his normal routine. If I wouldn't have known (about his injury), it looked like he was (playing), just the way he was doing everything he normally does on game day,' Tkachuk said.
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Maurice said that defenseman Niko Mikkola, who left the game after going shoulder-first into the boards in the third period, and fourth-line winger A.J. Greer, who also left in the third, should be ready for Game 4. Mikkola has had a breakout postseason and scored twice in Game 3 before his injury.
'I think (Mikkola is) good, too, but we're going to give him another day to make sure,' Maurice said.
On the Carolina end of things. Brind'Amour didn't sound optimistic about defenseman Sean Walker (upper-body injury) or Jalen Chatfield (lower-body) returning for Game 4. They were replaced by rookies Alexander Nikishin and Scott Morrow; Brind'Amour praised both.
'If (Walker and Chatfield) couldn't play yesterday, then it's probably doubtful they'll play tomorrow, is my guess,' Brind'Amour said. 'But I hope not.'
Brind'Amour was also complimentary of goalie Pyotr Kochetkov, who replaced starter Frederik Andersen, even if the coach pushed back a bit on the implication that Kochetkov helped Carolina weather 'a storm' in the first period, when the game was relatively competitive. Through two periods, Kochetkov had stopped 14 of 15 shots before finishing with six goals allowed on 28.
'I thought overall he gave us a chance, and that's what we ask the goalie,' Brind'Amour said. 'We're in the third period, it's at least a game, and it's partially because he was solid. And that's good reason enough to put him back in there.'
(Photo of Brad Marchand: Claus Andersen / Getty Images)