Verhaeghe Made It Three Straight Natural Hat Tricks — Then Bennett Added Another
GOATIFYThree consecutive games, three natural hat tricks, and a new entry in NHL history. Florida's 8-3 win over Seattle on October 17 was not simply another big offensive night. Carter Verhaeghe scored three unanswered goals to extend a sequence Brady Tkachuk had started against Columbus and continued against Vancouver. No team had ever produced natural hat tricks in three straight NHL games. Then Sam Bennett supplied a second hat trick in the same game, something the Panthers had never done before.
The records were spectacular, but the way Florida built them was just as revealing: fast puck movement, dangerous rebounds, a productive power play and scoring that did not depend on a single line. The Panthers have turned an uneven opening stretch into three straight wins, while Seattle left Sunrise with questions about how quickly one defensive breakdown can become five goals against.
Verhaeghe turned a 1-1 game into an NHL first in barely eight minutes
Sam Bennett had put Florida ahead just 65 seconds after the opening faceoff, but Shane Wright answered at 4:54 and Seattle had the game level for most of the first period. Then Verhaeghe took over. At 17:56, Verhaeghe beat Joey Daccord with a slap shot to restore the Panthers' lead. The official scoring record credits Sam Reinhart with the assist, and Florida was ahead again before the first intermission.
Only 71 seconds later, Florida struck again, this time on the power play. Brady and Matthew Tkachuk were credited with the assists as Verhaeghe finished a power-play wrist shot at 19:07. The goal sent Florida to the dressing room up 3-1 after a period that had looked evenly balanced for most of its duration. Two goals in the final 2:04 of the period changed the mood of the building and forced Seattle to chase the game.
The third goal arrived 6:02 into the second. Niko Mikkola attacked from behind the net with a wraparound attempt, and Verhaeghe collected the loose puck near the left post. Daccord was already down after the initial save, leaving Verhaeghe the kind of rebound a sharp scorer cannot ignore. From his first goal at 17:56 of the opening period to his third at 6:02 of the next, only 8:06 of game time elapsed.
That sequence is why the word natural matters. A natural hat trick is three consecutive goals by the same player, with no goal by either team interrupting the run. It is not just a personal scoring total. It captures one player's ability to dominate an uninterrupted passage of a game. Verhaeghe's goals came from three different attacking situations — a loose puck, a cross-crease power-play move and a second-chance finish — and each exposed a different defensive problem for Seattle.
His three goals also pushed the score to 4-1. Florida never surrendered control again. Mikkola scored only 40 seconds later, underlining how the burst had expanded beyond the man who started it. The game was no longer about whether the Panthers could win a tight contest; it had become a test of whether the Kraken could stop the momentum at all.
Bennett found his first goals of the season — and finished with three
Verhaeghe's three-goal stretch made the history books, but Bennett ensured the evening would be remembered for more than one scorer. His first goal came at 1:05 of the opening period, when he reacted to a rebound from a Matthew Tkachuk attempt and put Florida ahead. It was Bennett's first goal of the 2026-27 campaign, ending an early-season stretch in which chances had not yet translated into goals.
There was no need for Bennett to reinvent his game. He has long been effective around the crease and in contested areas, and the opener rewarded exactly those habits. His second goal came at 13:13 of the middle period after Brady Tkachuk delivered a cross-ice pass that Bennett converted. The goal made it 6-1 and gave the Panthers six goals from only a handful of decisive offensive sequences.
Bennett completed his hat trick at 11:14 of the third period, one-timing a pass from Uvis Balinskis in the left circle. It was his fourth career NHL hat trick and also his 400th regular-season point. Those are meaningful milestones for a player whose reputation has often been built as much on hard forechecking, physical engagement and playoff usefulness as on regular-season scoring totals.
That history provides context. Bennett's contributions to Florida's championship teams were never limited to goals: he created space, forced opponents into difficult puck decisions and was comfortable in the highest-pressure shifts. The archival Panthers playoff image accompanying this section reflects that established role, rather than purporting to show Saturday's Seattle game. The October performance added a reminder that his finishing can still change the shape of a game when the puck starts arriving in the right areas.
Florida had never previously produced two hat tricks in one game. Against Seattle, the Panthers did it with two forwards whose scoring styles are complementary. Verhaeghe capitalized on fast releases and loose pucks around the net; Bennett supplied directness and timing, from a rebound to a cross-ice feed to a clean one-timer. Having both players finish on the same night is unusual. More important for Florida, it means opposing teams cannot treat the attack as a one-player problem.
Brady Tkachuk's back-to-back natural hat tricks set the stage for an unprecedented third
The historical significance of Verhaeghe's hat trick cannot be separated from the two games that preceded it. Brady Tkachuk had scored three consecutive Florida goals against Columbus on October 13, with brother Matthew assisting on each of them. Two nights later against Vancouver, Brady did it again, completing another natural hat trick with the overtime winner. Those were remarkable individual performances even before Saturday's game.
Verhaeghe then extended the team sequence to a third straight game. The NHL had never seen players from one team record natural hat tricks in three consecutive games. Florida also became the first team in more than a century to record at least four hat tricks before its tenth game of a season, a benchmark previously reached by the Toronto St. Patricks in 1922-23. The Panthers' four hat tricks have come in only three games: two from Brady, one from Verhaeghe and one from Bennett.
There is a distinction between a hot shooting streak and an offense generating repeatable advantages. No team should expect three-goal individual performances to arrive every night. What is more transferable is the method: getting pucks across the slot, arriving early at rebounds, keeping possession alive around the boards and forcing goaltenders to move laterally. The goals themselves are rare. The attacking principles behind them can survive when shooting percentages return to normal.
The brothers have become a particularly interesting part of that pattern. Matthew supplied three assists against Seattle and Brady added two. They had factored together on a Florida goal in three straight games, a brotherly scoring sequence not seen in the league since Daniel and Henrik Sedin did it for Vancouver over a five-game stretch in 2018. Matthew also extended his personal point streak to eight games, with 14 points over that run, according to the official game recap.
The Panthers' historical run is therefore more than a collection of isolated hat-trick clips. The Tkachuks' passing, Verhaeghe's timing and Bennett's net-front instincts have begun to overlap in a way that creates multiple credible threats. That does not guarantee a title run in October. It does explain why a team that started unevenly has suddenly looked much harder to defend.
Maurice saw chemistry forming; Seattle saw how fast a road trip can unravel
Paul Maurice's most useful takeaway was not the number eight on the scoreboard. He saw an offense beginning to find speed and combinations after a start in which the Panthers had been inconsistent. The supporting cast mattered: Mikkola scored and assisted, Sam Reinhart added a power-play goal and an assist, and Seth Jones kept his early-season assist streak alive. Jacob Markstrom needed only 20 saves as Florida improved to 5-2-2.
Florida's scoring was not confined to one period. After Verhaeghe's burst and Mikkola's quick follow-up in the second, Bennett made it 6-1. Seattle briefly narrowed the gap through Frederick Gaudreau late in the period, but Reinhart's third-period power-play one-timer restored a five-goal cushion. Ryker Evans scored for the Kraken before Bennett completed the final 8-3 margin. The Panthers finished with 37 shots, and Daccord stopped 29 of them.
For Seattle, the game was an ugly conclusion to a road trip that had otherwise produced seven of a possible ten points. The Kraken entered the evening having gone 3-0-1 in their previous four games. Shane Wright scored their first goal and Berkly Catton and Kaapo Kakko each collected two assists, but the defensive response after Florida's first-period surge was not good enough. A strong trip does not disappear because of one lopsided defeat; it does leave a clear piece of video for the coaching staff to address.
Seattle was also without Brandon Montour, who had suffered a lower-body injury against Tampa Bay. His absence did not by itself explain eight goals against, but losing an experienced defenseman reduced the options available to coach Lane Lambert as Florida's attackers repeatedly created chances from dangerous areas. The Kraken return home to face Detroit on Tuesday, with a chance to show that Saturday was a bad finish rather than a new trend.
Florida has its own issue to monitor. Matthew Tkachuk left the late stages of the third period after a collision with Bennett, and Maurice characterized the decision to hold him out as precautionary. The coach expected him back at practice Monday, but that remains a projection rather than a confirmed medical clearance. Florida next travels to Ottawa on Wednesday. With the offense surging, the Panthers will want to preserve the chemistry without overreacting to either one injury scare or one extraordinary scoreline.
Verhaeghe's natural hat trick supplied the unprecedented third link in Florida's streak; Bennett's own three-goal night proved the attack could multiply its threats in the same game. The Panthers will not score eight every night, and three straight natural hat tricks may stand as a singular piece of NHL trivia for years. What matters next is whether the passing lanes, rebound pressure and line chemistry that produced those goals remain visible when the opposition adjusts. Against Seattle, Florida showed both the spectacular result and the practical ingredients behind it.
