PLYMOUTH, Michigan — Team USA general manager Bill Guerin said he is “planning and expecting” for Matthew Tkachuk to be available for the Olympic team in February.
“If something changes, then we’ll do what we have to do,” Guerin said Wednesday. “But he’s on [the roster] and he’s going to be on until he can’t.”
The Panthers’ star forward had surgery this summer to correct a lingering injury and is expected to miss the start of the NHL season, sources confirmed to ESPN. Florida has yet to announce details of Tkachuk’s status.
Tkachuk was the only member of Team USA’s Four Nations team not to attend this week’s Olympic orientation camp in Plymouth, Michigan. Guerin said Tkachuk called him recently to give him an update.
“He told me what was going on, and it wouldn’t be great for him to get on a plane and fly right now,” Guerin said. “So he didn’t need to be here. But he was upbeat. He’s always upbeat.”
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Tkachuk revealed he sustained a torn adductor muscle and a sports hernia injury during the Four Nations tournament, which forced him to miss most of the final game against Canada — he took only four shifts — and the final 25 games of the NHL regular season. Tkachuk returned for Game 1 of the playoffs, then scored 23 points (8 goals, 15 assists) in 23 games as the Panthers won their second straight Stanley Cup.
“He’s doing great. He’s feeling good,” Matthew’s brother, Brady Tkachuk, said Wednesday. ”I’ve been talking to him basically every day, especially since we’ve been here, he’s had the most FOMO that I’ve ever seen him have.”
Panthers GM Bill Zito is on Guerin’s management staff for Team USA. “I don’t push Billy. That’s his player,” Guerin said. “Matthew is a huge part of what we’re trying to do here.”
Tkachuk was among the first six players to be named to the American team, along with his brother Brady Tkachuk, Auston Matthews, Jack Eichel, Quinn Hughes and Charlie McAvoy. Final rosters must be submitted in early January. Each team is granted 25 roster spots, two more than in the Four Nations tournament.
Team USA coach Mike Sullivan said Tkachuk “means an awful lot to this team.”
“I think he represents in a lot of ways the identity of the team and what we’re trying to become as a group,” Sullivan said Wednesday. “He’s a fierce competitor. He has incredible care for his teammates. We certainly missed him in that final game of the Four Nations. I know we dressed him on the bench, but I think he played four shifts. He has an impact on the game in so many ways.”
“I think it’s a full expectation of him not just to play but be at his best,” Brady Tkachuk said. “It goes back to the injuries that he has had and he’s played through, he’ll just give you absolutely everything that he has.
“I know with his preparation and his work ethic that he’ll probably be in the best shape he’s ever been in after this surgery.”
The Tkachuk brothers became breakout stars for Team USA at the tournament when they helped organize three fights in the first nine seconds of America’s first game against Canada at the Bell Centre in Montreal. At the time, Matthew Tkachuk said the fights were meant to “send a message” that the United States wouldn’t back down against their fiercest rival.
Canada won the Four Nations tournament by edging the U.S. in overtime of the final game.
Fighting is banned in Olympic hockey. NHL players are returning to the Olympics for the first time in 12 years. At stake for the Americans: a first Olympic gold medal since their 1980 Miracle on Ice team.
