Panthers create NHL history with hat trick streak© X(formerly Twitter)/@FlaPanthers
The Florida Panthers did something Saturday night that no NHL team had ever done before. Carter Verhaeghe scored three straight goals in Florida’s 8-3 demolition of the Seattle Kraken, giving the Panthers a natural hat trick in three consecutive games. Brady Tkachuk had already done it in each of Florida’s previous two outings, so Verhaeghe’s performance was the exclamation point on a streak the league had never seen. Sam Bennett also bagged a hat trick in the same game. Four hat tricks in nine games. The Panthers are not messing around this season.
Panthers Rewrite the Record Books Nine Games In
Florida also became the first team in more than 100 years to record four or more hat tricks before its 10th game of a season. The last team to do it was the Toronto St. Patricks back in 1922-23, a franchise that would eventually become the Maple Leafs. That is over a century of NHL hockey, thousands of seasons across dozens of franchises, and nobody came close until this Panthers roster started playing like they are running a hat trick factory in South Florida.
The Verhaeghe performance itself was almost casual in how it unfolded. He scored twice late in the first period and then again midway through the second. Three goals, three straight, no interruptions. That is the definition of a natural hat trick, and it capped off a week nobody in the league office had a precedent for.
What makes this stretch genuinely remarkable is how it started. Brady Tkachuk scored three straight in the second period of Florida’s 7-3 win over Columbus last Tuesday, with his brother Matthew assisting on all three. Two days later, Brady did it again against Vancouver, becoming the third player in overall NHL history to record back-to-back natural hat tricks. Then Verhaeghe joined the party on Saturday. Three different games, three natural hat tricks, and enough hats raining down at Amerant Bank Arena to stock a department store.
A Tkachuk-Led Offence That Is Impossible to Contain
The Panthers are now 5-2-2 through nine games of the 2026-27 season. The wins and losses tell part of the story. The underlying numbers tell the rest. Matthew Tkachuk leads the team with 11 assists and 14 points, while Brady Tkachuk and Verhaeghe are both tied at six goals to lead the club. Defenseman Seth Jones has added one goal and nine assists for 10 points on the blue line.
What the Panthers have built offensively is not just depth. It is a top-to-bottom threat that forces opponents into impossible decisions. You cannot key on Brady Tkachuk without leaving Verhaeghe open. You cannot shadow Matthew Tkachuk without surrendering zone entry after zone entry. Saturday’s 8-3 result was not fluky. It was what happens when this roster gets rolling.
No team had managed three straight natural hat tricks in NHL history. Florida did it across one week of October hockey and barely seemed to blink.
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