We’ve heard a lot about the Florida locker room culture from the team at this point, with players and coach Paul Maurice speaking extensively during the playoffs about how the tight-knit locker room culture has played a big part in the now consecutive Stanley Cup champions’ success. Sam Bennett even commented on the locker room, saying, “I think we’ve just found that it works for us staying loose, cracking jokes, and just trying to be as relaxed as possible.” But beyond all the hunky-dory team building, there’s got to be some drama too, right? Well, Teddy Richards, the head equipment manager, may have caused some between Matthew Tkachuk and Sam Reinhart!
On a recent episode of the Spittin’ Chiclets podcast, Matt Murley, who worked with Teddy Richards at different times in his career, both with the Wilkes-Barre and Scranton Penguins, asked the equipment manager, “if there any players that are as low maintenance as I [Murley] was as a player on Florida this year?”
“Good question,” Richards responded, proceeding to then delve into a recent incident. “So, at one of our rookie dinners, Matthew Tkachuk, he kind of got us talking: who’s the highest maintenance guy? Who don’t you like? He asked who was lower maintenance between Matthew Tkachuk and Sam Reinhart. They’re both very low maintenance,” Richard confessed to Murley, adding, “But I said, Matthew, you know, you use one pair of gloves a year, one pair of skates a year, four games, one stick, you win, you’re the guy.” Richards then added that this didn’t bode well with Sam Reinhart, saying, “Rhino was so upset he lost. Later in the night we were both shoulder to shoulder in a urinal; he was pissed… he was like, ‘Are you kidding me?’” Maybe Tkachuk is the lower maintenance one then, given Reinhart’s inability to take this joke.
Sam Reinhart was shook when he heard Teddy Richards say Tkachuk was lower maintenance than him
: https://t.co/MapXxbkQSw pic.twitter.com/zSp6pXWpUO
— Game Notes (@GameNotesBud) June 20, 2025
Richards then dished a little more about who the lowest-maintenance player as a whole might be, saying of the Finnish center Eetu Luostarinen, “He’s next level. We give him Barkov’s used pants and used gloves, so it’s funny we just take black marker and black the name off Barkov. He asked me, he’s like, hey you think we could get my name on my gloves? And I’m like, not really.” This part may not have even been a joke, as, according to Geer Geek, Eetu Luostarinen uses Bauer Vapor HyperLite gloves and has used Barkov’s gloves in the past! So Sam Reinhart has more competition than just Matthew Tkachuk! However, this inter-team competition stays within the locker room; on the ice, the team sticks together like nobody’s business.
Matthew Tkachuk has Sam Reinhart’s back after injury caused by Sebastian Aho
During the playoffs, it was expected that Tkachuk wouldn’t be his usual aggressive self after he suffered an upper body injury in the Four Nations face-off and his appearance in the playoffs was looking skeptical till the competition actually started, and though Tkachuk didn’t seem to be in his finest form at the beginning of the series, that didn’t stop him from placing the punches when it mattered.
In game 2 of the Eastern Conference finals, Sam Reinhart was hit by Sebastian Aho pretty badly, causing the former to have to sit out the rest of the game. as a result, Matthew Tkachuk came at Aho full force in game 3, plying him with shoves and cross-checks and finally putting him in a headlock and forcing him onto the ice! Tkachuk got a ten-minute misconduct as a result but didn’t seem to regret it.
When asked about the incident later on, Tkachuk said, “Yeah, I mean, I don’t really look at it like intent or intimidation at all. It’s just sticking up for teammates, and we’re a family in there, and, you know, it could happen to anybody, and, you know, there’s probably 20 guys racing to be the guy to stick up for a teammate like that.” Low maintenance is a lifestyle of putting the team before the individual and Matthew Tkachuk seems to embrace it fully, even if that is upsetting to Reinhart!
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