The Calgary Flames rookie forward committed the act as the final buzzer sounded:
Tkachuk was involved in a similar incident involving Edmonton's Brandon Davidson in October, and was also suspended two OHL games last year for slew footing.
The talented Tkachuk ranks second in the NHL with 92 penalty minutes this season.
Every Tuesday, theScore's editors will examine the fortunes of the north's seven NHL franchises. Welcome to "O Canada."
Calgary Flames
Plus: After a relatively slow start to the season, Sean Monahan has enjoyed a very productive January. The center recorded at least a point in seven of Calgary's 11 games, with five goals and five assists. The 10 total points match his best monthly output of the season so far, and the Flames still have two games to play before the calendar turns to February.
Minus: Following Monday's loss in Toronto, the Flames have now dropped three in a row after allowing the opposition to score 13 combined goals to begin those games.
The #flames have trailed 4-0, 5-0 and 4-0 in the last three games.
Take: Despite the losing streak, the Flames remain in a Western Conference wild-card spot, albeit with a 10th-ranked point percentage of .510. Monahan and Johnny Gaudreau need to step up in order to hold on.
Edmonton Oilers
Plus: Jordan Eberle is also quietly beginning to awaken. The Oilers winger recorded three goals and three assists over the team's past four games, level with Connor McDavid. Four of those points came in a 7-3 win over Calgary on Jan. 21 in which Edmonton completed a season sweep of the Battle of Alberta for only the third time in team history.
Minus: Milan Lucic, who's making $6 million, is on pace for 18 goals this season. Patrick Maroon has already reached that total in 49 games, and carries a cap hit of $1.5 million.
Take: Thanks to those wins over the Flames, the Oilers sit nine points ahead of Calgary in the Pacific Division, and only three points behind first-place Anaheim. A playoff berth seems all but guaranteed at this point.
Montreal Canadiens
Plus: Max Pacioretty has recorded at least 20 goals in each of the past four seasons, and has accomplished the feat in eerily familiar fashion.
Weird stat mentioned by @SNkylebukauskas on SN broadcast: Max Pacioretty scored his 20th goal on Jan 14 in 2014, 2015 and 2017.
Minus: Alex Galchenyuk has re-aggravated a knee injury that kept him out of the lineup for 18 games earlier this season. He'll miss at least one game, but the hope is that the issue isn't as serious this time.
Take: The Canadiens continue to sit comfortably atop the Atlantic Division, but can ill afford to get uncharacteristically poor performances from Carey Price, whose January save percentage sits at .887. The second-place Senators are only eight points back with three games in hand.
Ottawa Senators
Plus: General manager Pierre Dorion is enjoying a nice first year on the job, but Bryan Murray's fingerprints remain all over the Senators. The team's former coach and GM (and current senior adviser) will be inducted into Ottawa's ring of honor prior to Tuesday's game against Washington.
Minus: Bobby Ryan has been showing signs of life lately, but the fact he ranks ninth on the Senators in total points while earning a team-high $7.25 million is unacceptable.
Take: Mike Condon has been putting in yeoman's work in order to keep the team afloat, but the Senators will need Craig Anderson (personal) or Andrew Hammond (ankle) to return in order to solidify the position and give Ottawa a chance to hold on to a fairly unexpected playoff spot.
Toronto Maple Leafs
Plus: After seeing both William Nylander and Auston Matthews win rookie of the month honors, Mitch Marner is tracking to add his name to the list after recently overtaking the latter for the scoring lead among first-year players.
Mitchell Marner (11-28—39) posted 1-1—2 last night to surpass @MapleLeafs teammate Auston Matthews (22-16—38) for the rookie scoring lead. pic.twitter.com/iub4qstvnS
Minus: Frederik Andersen is on pace to make 75 starts for the Maple Leafs this season, a workload that is essentially unseen in today's NHL. Curtis McElhinney was scooped off waivers to serve as backup, and will need to show he's capable of giving Andersen some much-needed relief down the stretch.
Take: It's becoming more and more difficult to deny the Maple Leafs are indeed as good as their record suggests. It's perhaps a year or two earlier than expected, but playoff hockey seems set to return to Toronto.
Vancouver Canucks
Plus: Henrik Sedin recently hit 1,000 career points, and brother Daniel Sedin is 32 points shy of the mark. Treasure the twins while we still can.
Minus: The Loui Eriksson signing continues to look like a flop. The Swedish winger, who's on the books through 2021-22 at $6 million a season, ranks sixth on the Canucks with 21 points (10 goals, 11 assists) through 48 games.
Take: Vancouver sits only one point behind both Calgary and St. Louis in the quest for a wild-card playoff berth, and eighth in the Western Conference in terms of point percentage. Few expected the Canucks to be in the mix, and it will be interesting to see if they consider themselves buyers or sellers in advance of the trade deadline.
Winnipeg Jets
Plus: Patrik Laine has been dominating the headlines in Winnipeg this season, but Nikolaj Ehlers is here to remind us there's more than one high-end young talent on the Jets roster.
Minus: Ehlers' effort aside, the Jets lost to Anaheim on Monday, and while they appear to remain in striking distance of a playoff spot, their point percentage ranks ahead of only Arizona and Colorado out West. Not company you want to be keeping at this point in the season.
Take: Ondrej Pavelec has posted a record of 2-1-0 with a .907 save percentage since being recalled from the AHL, but the fact the Jets are relying on him to save their season speaks volumes about their goaltending situation.
After a snake-bitten 2015-16 saw Nazem Kadri post the NHL's 12th-most shots (260) and finish with only 17 goals, the young Toronto Maple Leafs pivot seems to finally be getting his due.
The 26-year-old has flipped the script in 2016-17, piling up goals at every turn after a year of seemingly doing everything right and finding little reward.
Through 45 games this season, Kadri has already bested last year's total with 20 goals - 11th-most in the league, and just a pair off elite snipers like Alex Ovechkin.
Barring anything unforeseen, Kadri will finish 2016-17 with a career-best goal total, as his 20 tallies through half a season have already matched his previous career high, set in 2013-14.
It's no surprise the young centreman is making waves on the goal-scoring scene. Especially after his performance in 2015-16, when he found a new gear and emerged as one of the game's most prolific shooters with an astounding 260 shots - adding 84 chances on net to his previous best sum.
And yet, that promising season saw Kadri's shooting percentage plummet to a career-worst 6.5 percent. He finished as the only NHL shooter with over 250 chances on net and fewer than 20 goals, watching veteran teammates like P.A. Parenteau and Leo Komarov tally more goals in fewer games.
This time around, Kadri's putting pucks in the net at a much-improved rate of 14.2 percent, while still on pace for roughly the same number of shots - returning to the promising offensive level he showed early in his career, even as he's emerged as a savvy two-way force in Toronto.
If his pace holds up, Kadri will finish the year with 36 goals and 60 points - career highs by a mile, and just the type of elite effort the Leafs faithful have been waiting for from the 2009 first-round pick.
For the second time in as many seasons, the Washington Capitals are rolling through the Eastern Conference with reckless abandon, setting themselves up for another league-leading finish, and perhaps more.
The Caps have looked especially dominant as of late, racking up 12 wins over their past 14 games - with the only two losses over that span coming in extra time.
That blazing run gave Washington 26 points over the past month of play, taking its season total to 70 points - tops in the NHL.
With over half the campaign in the books, the Capitals are separating themselves from the Presidents' Trophy herd once again, sitting a handful of points above similarly hot teams in Columbus, Minnesota, and Pittsburgh, and a mile above the more pedestrian clubs.
But considering their current trajectory, the Caps might be on track for something more illustrious than their second consecutive regular-season crown.
With 70 points through 47 games, the club is on track to hit 122 points by season's end. That mark would be good enough to clear both of their previous league-leading seasons - 121 points back in 2009-10 and 120 points last season.
In fact, it would rank as the best regular-season showing in Capitals history.
Washington would require a monstrous finish to reach that historic mark - 52 points over the final 35 contests - but considering the way the club has been cruising past the competition, it might not be out of the question.
The Caps have put up four goals or more 22 times in 2016-17, 11 of which have come in the past month. Meanwhile, they're allowing the fewest goals per game of any NHL club, with 2016 Vezina Trophy winner Braden Holtby putting together another strong season.
Of course, the true test for Washington will come after its 82 games are done, as the Capitals' sights are likely set higher than another sterling regular season.
At this point, it's all about becoming a team that can take down any playoff opponent put in front of it. Considering the numbers the Caps are putting up right now, that doesn't seem too far-fetched.
For Marleau the bushel of goals helps bring his recent slump to an abrupt end, as prior to Monday's game the former Sharks captain had not scored a goal in seven straight contests.
Marleau wouldn't be done there as he would add a fourth - for the first time in his career - before the period was up.
"I feel fine," Gaudreau said. "It's part of hockey - you're going to get hit sometimes."
Gaudreau's coach, however, didn't see it quite the same way.
"I thought it was contact to the head," Flames coach Glen Gulutzan said, according to TSN's Mark Masters. "I thought for sure we were going on the power play."
Gaudreau was blasted in the second period when he was caught watching a pass he tipped toward an open man as the Flames worked the puck out of their zone on the power play. Komarov had followed the puck along the boards with speed, and carried his momentum straight through the body of the defenseless Calgary sniper.
With the shorter Gaudreau in a crouch position, head contact, in this case, was inevitable. Komarov kept his hands down and his feet planted though the contact.
"It looked a little bit worse than it was," Komarov said. "I mean, he's a bit of a smaller guy. I think it was a good hit."
For the fifth straight season it appears Rickard Rakell will improve on his previous season's output.
The Anaheim Ducks forward collected his 20th goal of the season against the Winnipeg Jets on Monday night, hitting the mark for the second straight year.
That being said this season Rackell is finding the back of the net at a higher clip than he has since he entered the league. The 23-year-old concluded last season with 20 goals and 43 points, and this season he has matched his career high in goals in 33 fewer games.
If he continues to produce at a similar rate he would finish the year with 36 goals and 52 points - both career bests.
Rackell has quickly become among the Ducks most dynamic talents - high praise for a player who plays alongside Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry.
His 20 goals are the most among all Ducks players, even while being limited to 39 games due to a stomach virus that also kept him out of the World Cup of Hockey.
Rackell leads the Ducks with five game-winning goals and scores the most goals and points per 60 minutes than any player on the team.
The Ducks inked Rackell to a six-year $22.8-million deal in October and as it looks now, that contract could turn out to be one hell of a bargain.
A stretch of bad games did little to shake the confidence that the New York Rangers have in their star netminder.
Henrik Lundqvist turned in another stellar effort on Monday night, steering away 36 shots as the Rangers got by the Los Angeles Kings 3-2.
For Lundqvist, the outing was his third straight win and while his previous handful of games had many running for the hills, forward Mats Zuccarello insists the team never lost faith in Lundqvist's abilities.
"He’s our most important player," Zuccarello said postgame. "We didn’t give him good enough help for a stretch there. He knew he needed to be better, but everybody goes through slumps during the season. We have no worries for Hank. In my opinion he’s the best goalie in the world and he showed that tonight, and was showing that the last few games."
Over the past three games Lundqvist has stopped 80 of the 84 shots thrown his way,m this after he had conceded 20 goals in his previous four appearances. According to the man himself, his sudden rebound in play can be contributed to simplifying his game.
"I simplified my focus I think three games ago. It helps me be on my toes a little bit," said Lundqvist. "The way I can describe it is I just try to simplify everything and have a little higher readiness than before. But this game, especially for me, is so much the way I think, the way I read the game and stay in the moment. So I just try to simplify it and then adding with the way we’re playing right now in the last three (games) - blocking shots, and really trying to play a better defensive game - obviously that helps me."
With their third straight win, the Rangers are now just a win behind the Pittsburgh Penguins for third place in the Metropolitan Division.
