After a hard hit knocked Matthew Tkachuk out of a game Thursday night, NHL fans didn’t appreciate the way one analyst reacted to the injury.
During the first period of a rematch of last season’s Eastern Conference Finals, Carolina Hurricanes forward Andrei Svechnikov hit Tkachuk, forcing the Florida Panthers star to exit the game. Bally Sports Canes later tweeted the announcement that Tkachuk did not return for the start of the second period, alongside a video featuring commentary from Hurricanes analyst Tripp Tracy.
Matthew Tkachuk did not come out to start the 2nd period pic.twitter.com/nHqheha5LV
— Bally Sports: Canes (@CanesOnBally) February 23, 2024
“The guy that had a torn ACL and couldn’t complete in the Conference Final has knocked Matthew Tkachuk out of the game for now with a beautiful through the body hit,” Tracy said of Svechnikov’s hit on Tkachuk. “That had to be invigorating for his teammates.”
NHL fans quickly reacted to Tracy’s commentary, believing he was celebrating Tkachuk’s injury by calling it “invigorating” for the Hurricanes. After seeing negative narratives start to snowball on social media, Tracy attempted to clarify his comments late Thursday night on Twitter.
Tweet after @FlaPanthers beat the @canes in Eastern Conference Final. As many close friends as I have in the Panthers’ Organization,do you actually think I would celebrate an injury? Ludicrous.Having Andrei Svechnikov back was indeed invigorating for the @canes, and his Teammates pic.twitter.com/Nhj7Mxv48a
— TrippTracy (@TrippTracy) February 23, 2024
“As many close friends as I have in the Panthers’ organization, do you actually think I would celebrate an injury?” Tracy wrote. “Ludicrous. Having Andrei Svechnikov back was indeed invigorating for the Canes, and his teammates.”
Had Tracy said “having Svechnikov back is invigorating for his teammates,” there would have been no issue. That’s not what he said. Svechnikov has been back for 35 games this season. His 35th game of the season probably wasn’t the one that “invigorated” the Hurricanes.
But it’s also probably a stretch to claim Tracy was celebrating the injury. He was celebrating the hit, not necessarily the injury. The hit happened to injure Tkachuk, but it was a clean hit. Svechnikov’s teammates probably weren’t even aware Tkachuk was going to be out for the game at they time they were “invigorated.” Tracy’s celebrating may have been poorly timed, but it wasn’t necessarily in poor taste.
