ST. LOUIS - When the Calgary Flames drafted Matthew Tkachuk sixth overall in the 2016 NHL Entry Draft, they knew he played with an edge.
At Buffalo’s First Niagara Center, last summer, Flames president of hockey operations Brian Burke famously said that the former London Knights winger was kind of “a pain in the ass.”
And, frankly, it’s been a while since the Flames organization has had a player like Tkachuk who is willing to go into the tough areas of the ice and play hard in front of the net.
So, when the 19-year-old rookie was slapped with a two-game suspension by the National Hockey League’s department of player safety following an alleged high elbow in last Sunday’s 5-2 win over the Los Angeles Kings, he served the sentence like a professional.