By Jordan Long
The Calgary Flames ended the season at 50-21-11 for 111 points, the most in the Pacific Division. They were bounced in the 2nd-round by the Edmonton Oilers in 5 games. Once free agency opened up, they failed to sign forward Johnny Gaudreau who agreed to a 6-year, $40.5 million contract with Columbus. Now they traded one of their best young forwards, Matthew Tkachuk to Florida.
Matthew Tkachuk has been with the Calgary Flames for the past 6 years. During that time, he blossomed into one of the best young scorers for the team. He totaled 152 goals and 230 assists for a total of 382 points. Tkachuk was valuable on the power play since he could not only score but set up his teammates with a total of 45 power play goals and 72 assists on the man advantage.
Last year was a career year for Tkachuk. He lit the lamp 42 times while dishing out 62 assists for 104 points. The points were second on the team. Only Johnny Gaudreau had more at 115.
In the playoffs, Tkachuk played well, scoring 4 goals and 6 assists. It wasn’t enough to keep the Flames in the postseason as they were trounced in the 2nd round. Once game 5 ended, Tkachuk thought about his NHL future. Tkachuk concluded Calgary wasn’t where he wanted to play. He knew if they offered him a contract, he was going to refuse.
Calgary had no choice but trade Tkachuk out of Calgary. They dealt Tkachuk and a 2025 4th-round pick to Florida. Florida shipped forward Jonathan Huberdeau, defenseman MacKenzie Weegar, prospect Cole Schwindt, and a conditional first-round pick in the 2024 NHL Draft to Calgary.
Once this trade was finalized Tkachuk also agreed to stay with Florida long-term, agreeing to an 8-year, $76 million extension. That averages out at $9.5 million per year.
According to msn.com, Tkachuk said, “It was just kind of putting myself in a position to reevaluate everything — life, on-ice, off-ice, the future and I came to the decision that I was going to look elsewhere and have a change. And Florida kind of fell right into my lap within the last week or so. So, very happy with a very tough process. Hard, mixed emotions, sad, happy, everything, but very ecstatic to be ending up in Florida.”
The Panthers have a talented team. They went an NHL best 58-18-6 for a total of 122 points. Unfortunately, they were swept in the 2nd-round by the Tampa Bay Lightning. Florida was outscored 13 to 3 in that series. Florida couldn’t generate much offense. Tampa Bay had a great game plan to slow down Florida’s offense and it worked. Florida is anticipating adding Tkachuk will give them a skater who can skate past the defenseman to create scoring chances and improve their power play. The goal is to put the puck in the back of the net more. They want to make it past the 2nd-round. It feels like acquiring Tkachuk improves their offense in hopes of advancing far in the NHL’s postseason. The goal is to win the Stanley Cup.
The Flames may have lost Tkachuk, but they received another scorer in Jonathan Huberdeau. Huberdeau has been with the Panthers since 2012. In that time he scored 198 goals and added 415 assists for a total of 613 points, the most in Florida’s history. The Flames expect him to be the same scorer he was in Florida. The Flames also want to make a deeper run in the playoffs. For both teams, this was a great trade. Calgary and Florida improved their teams with this transaction which is rare to see in any deal.
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