Jacob Trouba made his San Jose Sharks debut on Thursday and spent the first period establishing what he’d been brought in to do. When Brady Tkachuk put Macklin Celebrini on the ice from behind, Trouba went straight at him.
The sequence had a build-up. Celebrini, playing his first game since being named the 11th captain in Sharks history, had earlier knocked Florida captain Aleksander Barkov off his feet near center ice. Tkachuk chased him down in response and took him down hard along the boards, leaving the 20-year-old face down on the ice. Trouba didn’t wait for anyone else to react.
Both players took five-minute fighting majors at 7:40 of the first period. The fight itself was competitive, with most accounts giving Tkachuk the edge by a narrow margin.
Did Brady Tkachuk get penalized for the hit on Celebrini?
The penalty log from the game shows only the two fighting majors from that sequence, with nothing assessed for whatever Tkachuk did to Celebrini in the first place. That omission is what has people angry.
Fans watching the replays weren’t convinced the officials could have missed it.
“‘Didn’t see it’ – shows ref two feet away looking at them,” one wrote, while another posted that the referee was “looking right at Brady sucker punching Celebrini from behind.”
A third was less certain about what they’d seen but no happier about it. “Maybe it’s just the angle, but did he not just punch Mack in the back of the head?”
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Whatever the exact mechanics of it, this was a hit delivered from behind on a player who had no idea it was coming, and it left him face down on the ice. Fans all called it a cheap shot, and the fact that it carried no consequence seemed to be the problem.
Either way, plenty felt the matter shouldn’t end with a fighting major.
“Tkachuk hitting Macklin in the back of the head is unacceptable. He needs a suspension. We’ve seen how concussions affected Crosby. Squash this now,” one fan wrote.
“‘Getting under everyone’s skin’ is a weird way to say ‘trying to injure another player,'” another said, while a third offered: “As if Florida wasn’t dirty enough already.”
The two have history, having fought once before in December 2022 when Tkachuk was in Ottawa and Trouba with the Rangers. San Jose won the game 4-3 in overtime, and the clubs don’t meet again until February 21 in Florida.
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