Matthew Tkachuk sends a clear warning to Sebastian Aho.

The Florida Panthers look like a team that is destined for a trip to the Stanley Cup Final after taking a commanding 3-0 lead over the Carolina Hurricanes in the Eastern Conference Final, and doing so while thoroughly dominating the Hurricanes on the ice.

While the series has gone about as well as you could have liked on the scoreboard as far as the Panthers are concerned, that doesn't mean that the series has rolled by without issue for the Panthers. In Game 2 of the series the Panthers lost one of their top forwards when Sam Reinhart went down with a nasty looking injury after a low-bridge type of hit from Hurricanes forward Sebastien Aho.

As you can see from the video replay, this doesn't look good for Reinhart's prospects in what remains of the 2025 Stanley Cup playoffs.

On Saturday night, during Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Final, Panthers forward Matthew Tkachuk would go out of his way to send a message to Aho to let him know that the Panthers wouldn't soon be forgetting what Aho did to Reinhart. Tkachuk would stalk Aho late in the third period before simply jumping on top of him and mauling the Hurricanes star, clearly not concerned about drawing a penalty with his team holding a commanding 6-1 lead.

Former National Hockey League defenseman Kevin Bieksa highlighted the incident after the game and even called out Aho's teammates for failing to protect him.

For his part, Matthew Tkachuk made no effort to hide what he was trying to do when he mauled Aho late in the third period.

"It's just sticking up for teammates," admitted Tkachuk. "We're a family in there. It could happen to anybody. There's probably 20 guys racing to be the guy to stick up for a teammate like that."

Something tells me Aho will need to keep his head on a swivel in Game 4.