Although Tkachuk admitted there were some plays he wished he could have had back — perhaps including the roughing penalty at 10:25 of the first period that led to the Lightning’s first goal — he said he felt “great.”

And though Paul Maurice cautioned that Tkachuk’s game was “OK,” he noted that, even after two months off, there are some parts of the forward’s game that are simply magical.

“What was on display was the hands,” Maurice said. “Just an incredible set of hands. … When you put it in the context, he hasn’t played a hockey game in two months. You or I wouldn’t have any hands in that game. For him, he can still take that much time off and handle a puck the way he handles it.

“The rest of it was just smartly played by him, in that I don’t think he was in the rhythm of the game.”

And yet, even as he was getting reacclimated, even as he was reintroducing himself to the game, he scored twice, he provided the energy and the verve, a little bit of which had been missing in his absence, as the Panthers struggled, as they slipped into third place in the Atlantic Division and lost home-ice advantage.

He returned. The Panthers shifted.

“He’s not really a guy you can put a label on because he’s such a unicorn of a player,” Schmidt said. “But I think more than anything, just how he is in the room, getting the guys fired up for the game, you feel his energy, you feel his excitement in the locker room. I think it takes the edge off of guys quite a bit.”

They were happy to have him. Tkachuk, for his part, was overjoyed to be back.

“It makes you realize how great of a game it is and the best thing in the world is [to be] out there competing,” Tkachuk said. “Being around the guys. Just, everything. I’m loving it.”