The Guy Jordan Staal Beat Up in Round 1 Joined the Panthers

So Brady Tkachuk is a Panther now. Great. The team that's been the wall in front of us just added the guy our captain put on the ice three seconds into last year's playoffs.

I keep coming back to that fight. Tkachuk did his usual thing, jawing before the draw, gloves off right away, trying to set a tone. Got a couple good ones in early too. And then Staal, 37 years old and not exactly out there looking for it, shook it off, caught him with an uppercut, and dropped him. Then went and won the game. That is the entire difference between these two teams in one shift.

Because that is the Tkachuk brothers' whole act. Brady and Matthew did the same fight-off-the-opening-faceoff bit at 4 Nations. It works, it fires up a bench, I get it. But now both of them are in Florida on the back-to-back champs, and one of them has some unfinished business with our captain.

Good. I want that matchup. The Panthers were already the measuring stick, and they win with star power and edge and exactly the kind of chaos the Tkachuks bring. We win the other way, with structure and depth and a room full of guys who all play the same honest game. Staal decking Tkachuk and then quietly running the rest of the night is that difference. I'll take our version every time.

One more thing, and this is just me being salty. Keith Tkachuk goes into the Hall this year, deserved, and I sat there thinking about Rod still waiting. Different tracks, I know, player versus builder, and his coaching career is still young. But what he's built here is going to be impossible to argue with when his time comes. I just want it here already.

Anyway. The guy who tried to punk us in Round 1 is on our biggest rival now. Let's run it back.

Go Canes.