The Calgary Flames completed a blockbuster trade with the Florida Panthers late Friday evening, sending disgruntled forward Matthew Tkachuk to the Sunshine State.
In addition to Tkachuk, the Flames will be sending a conditional-4th round pick to Florida in exchange for Jonathan Huberdeau, Cole Schwindt, MacKenzie Weegar and the Panther’s lottery protected 1st round pick in 2025.
Immediately following news of the deal, the Panthers announced that they had come to terms on a new 8yr/$76M contract with the star winger. The 24 year old’s new deal will carry an average annual value of $9.5M and will run through the 2029-2030 season.
Originally taken 6th overall by the Flames in the 2016 NHL entry draft, Tkachuk recorded career highs in goals (42), assists (62), and points (104), as he helped lead the Flames to a 50-21-11 record, and a Pacific Division crown last year.
However following the departure of Johnny Gaudreau who joined Columbus in free agency, Tkachuk’s camp informed Calgary that they would not be signing a long term deal with the club. Rumours began to circulate that Tkachuk was angling to return to the States, and was hoping to join either Dallas, Florida, Nashville, New Jersey, the New York Rangers, or the St. Louis Blues.
In turn, Calgary filed for salary arbitration, and set the date for August 11th, which was the last day possible for proceedings. Despite the clerical move, hockey insiders believed the writing was already on the wall for Tkachuk and that the club would be moving him sooner rather than later.
“Matthew is a tenacious, physical competitor who possesses a tremendously unique skillset,” Panthers GM Bill Zito said in a statement. “He is a consistent elite offensive contributor and has emerged as one of the most complete and dynamic young players in the National Hockey League…We are thrilled to be able to add a generational talent to our lineup.”
While Flames fans will be disappointed to see arguably their top two players leave following a season which seemed to have so much promise last year, the return for Tkachuk was substantial.
Huberdeau posted a career high 115pts, with an NHL leading 85 assists, while tying his career high for goals with 30 last year. The native of Saint-Jerome, Quebec was a key contributor for the President’s Trophy winning Panthers in 2021-22 and can immediately make an impact for Calgary on their top line.
Meanwhile 28 year old defenseman Mackenzie Weegar posted career highs in virtually every statistical category for the Panthers last year and will go a long way towards bolstering the Flames blue line.
While the deal is fairly even on paper, the reality is that the trade simply buys Calgary time to evaluate the direction of the franchise moving forward. Both Huberdeau and Weegar are entering the final year of their current contracts and are both set to become UFA’s at season’s end.
If the Flames aren’t able to work out long term deals with either player, then they’ll be faced with a similar situation to what they just went through with Tkachuk this summer. Calgary’s roster isn’t bad enough to bottom out this year, which means come trade deadline time, Calgary will have to take a long hard look in the mirror and decide whether they want to make a run with their existing core, or hold a firesale.
Both Weegar and Huberdeau would command massive returns at the deadline, and perhaps that’s a good enough plan B for the moment for Calgary. If the club isn’t able to ink their newly acquired talent to extensions, then Flames fans could be staring down the barrel of a flow blown rebuild in the years to come.
-Kyle Skinner
Twitter: @JKyleSkinner
Photo: Tlop2000. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.