Matthew Tkachuk Traded To Florida, Signs $76 Million Extension In NHL Blockbuster Deal

“Fool me twice, shame on me.”

That seems to sum up the thinking of Calgary Flames general manager Brad Treliving, who sent star forward Matthew Tkachuk to the Florida Panthers on Friday night in a high-wattage trade that’s rarely seen in today’s NHL.

Just nine days ago, Treliving watched another one of his top players, Johnny Gaudreau, walk away from an enormous contract offer and sign a seven-year free-agent deal with the Columbus Blue Jackets. When Gaudreau’s linemate, Tkachuk, indicated that he also had no intention of committing to the Flames for the long term, Treliving went to work to find a desirable landing spot for the valuable 24-year-old, while also extracting a handsome return.

Late Friday night, the deal went down. It’s an ultra-rare scenario where two forwards coming off 100-plus-point seasons are traded for each other, with a few other pieces also involved.

Tkachuk finished eighth in the NHL scoring race last season, with 104 points. He was dealt to the Florida Panthers, along with a conditional fourth-round draft pick, in exchange for forwards Jonathan Huberdeau (115 points) and center prospect Cole Schwindt, along with defenseman MacKenzie Weegar and a conditional first-round draft pick in 2025.

The Panthers also announced that they have signed Tkachuk to an eight-year contract extension with a cap hit of $9.5 million per season. He had been a restricted free agent after playing through a three-year bridge deal with a cap hit of $7.5 million a year, and a real salary of $9 million.

Last Monday, the Flames filed for club-elected salary arbitration with Tkachuk. That ensured that he couldn’t sign an offer sheet from another team, and that they’d be guaranteed to be able to bring him under contract for next season in the event that he wasn’t traded immediately.

Drafted sixth overall in 2016, Tkachuk jumped straight into the NHL as an 18-year-old. He ranks first in his draft class in games played (431), second to Auston Matthews in points (382), and fourth in goals (152), behind only Matthews, Patrik Laine and Alex DeBrincat.

Laine signed a four-year extension with the Columbus Blue Jackets earlier on Friday, with a cap hit of $8.7 million per season. He has 176 goals in 407 games, and had also been one year away from unrestricted free agency,

At 6’2” and 202 pounds, Tkachuk has an edge to his game that’s rare among top offensive producers. He rarely fights, but does lead his draft class in penalty minutes (425). And that abrasiveness could have great value for the Panthers, who have quickly ascended to the realm of playoff contenders over the past two seasons but who bowed out of the second round of the postseason rather meekly last spring, swept in four straight games by the Tampa Bay Lightning.

South Florida has always long been a desirable destination for hockey players. The lifestyle is comfortable, players can live relatively anonymously, and Florida is one of nine U.S. states that does not levy income tax. Being part of a contender, like cross-state rivals the Lightning, adds another layer of appeal.

But teams were lining up to bid on Tkachuk, so the price to win the bidding war was high — on the surface, at least. Florida general manager Bill Zito may also have been looking toward the future when he put together his trade proposal.

Jonathan Huberdeau, 29, has been a franchise cornerstone in Florida for the last decade — and was the longest-serving Panther before Friday’s trade. Drafted third overall in 2011, the big left-winger from Quebec won the Calder Trophy as the NHL’s rookie of the year in the lockout-shortened 2012-13 season, then continued to grow his game year by year. Last season, he tied Gaudreau for second place in the NHL scoring race with a career-high 115 points. He also finished fifth in Hart Trophy voting as the league’s most valuable player.

In recent years, Huberdeau has become a bargain for the Panthers. In 2016, he signed a six-year contract extension that carries a cap hit of $5.9 million per season. For the last three years, he has had full no-movement protection. This season is the last year of the deal. According to CapFriendly, it carried only a modified no-trade clause where he could list eight teams where he didn’t want to be traded.

For a player of Huberdeau’s stature, it’s incredible that it took his general manager less than 10 days to take advantage when that trade protection loosened. But Florida captain Aleksander Barkov is going into the first year of his new deal with a cap hit of $10 million per season, and there’s a good chance that Zito knows what Huberdeau’s representatives are looking for in a new contract.

There’s some logic behind choosing to commit instead to Tkachuk, who’s nearly five years younger and will bring a different energy to the team.

Florida also parts with MacKenzie Weegar, a 28-year-old who was originally drafted by the Panthers in the seventh round in 2013, but who has developed into a top-four right-shot defenseman.

Weegar hit new career highs last season with 44 points and 23:22 of average ice time, and has finished in the top 15 in Norris Trophy voting in each of the last two seasons. But like Huberdeau, he’s also one year away from unrestricted free agency, and will be looking for a big raise off the $3.25 million cap hit he has claimed on his current three-year deal.

Adding Huberdeau and Weegar gives the Flames’ roster a pop — and should excite their fanbase, which has been apoplectic since a strong season ended with a playoff loss to their hated provincial rivals in Edmonton and has since seen Gaudreau and then Tkachuk looking for a ticket out of town.

But has Treliving simply kicked the ball down the road?

The new additions should help keep the Flames competitive in the Pacific Division in the 2022-23 season. But it will be impossible to judge this return for Calgary until we see whether or not Huberdeau and Weegar are willing to do what Gaudreau and Tkachuk wouldn’t — sign long-term deals to stay on and chase a cup in southern Alberta.