Confirmed Trade: [FLA/CGY] Matthew Tkachuk, c. 2025 4th for Jonathan Huberdeau, MacKenzie Weegar, Cole Schwindt, c. 2025 1st

[Hobnobs]

He's definitely a top skater. In a pure footrace from one end of the ice to the other, he'd be pretty average. I even doubt above average speed honestly. Likely below average.

There are lots of guys who can skate really fast in over direction, but have no ability to evade and have awful control. Gaudreau is the opposite.

Its just funny that the evidence he used is Gaudreau cutting in between two defensemen in transition. Like Darren McCarty has done this as well. Average skaters and above can all do this at the NHL level. It's not proof of anything.

 

[Figgy44]

He's definitely a top skater. In a pure footrace from one end of the ice to the other, he'd be pretty average. I even doubt above average speed honestly. Likely below average.

There are lots of guys who can skate really fast in over direction, but have no ability to evade and have awful control. Gaudreau is the opposite.

I can see the confusion about Gaudreau's skating. Your comment was kinda odd. I get where you're coming from, but I can also see why that guy thought it was absurd.

Gaudreau has around average top speed and acceleration. He's not elite in those categories for skating. However, his edgework, stickwork at speed and evasiveness are near tops in the league and elite. That combined package makes him above average for skating.

He won't win many foot races, he probably won't take off and have a huge gaps on a ton of breakaways... but flat footed/bad position dmen, he'll easily maintain several strides in front of them on a breakaway, he'll be able to have enough space to protect the puck, he'll lose the board battle and then just strip the puck with a nifty stick play, he'll skate in circles at a higher pace without slowing down via evasion and stickhandling, but not a blistering pace... they're kinda different things or tricks used to offset the weaknesses of his pure skating talent.

JG's skating will be a little bit more than adequate, but not much more. This vs Tkachuk where his skating is just barely adequate. Crazy to think that Tkachuk and Gaudreau could still improve their game with the most incremental power and speed improvements to their skating.

Gaudreau's overall skating is slightly above average with an above average cruising speed and average top speed + acceleration. It's really up there, but I would agree he's not really an "elite skater" from the commonly used definition. Combined with Tkachuk who has a below average skating with below average cruising speed + top speed + acceleration and average edgework... yes, that pair of wingers is probably the slowest top speed and acceleration of the offensive winger dynamos out there.

Few people actually would word things this way when talking about forwards though. Few people ever consider wingers a pair unless the centre is significantly lower in tier than the wingers (ie: Panarin and Kane with Anisimov? eons ago). Lindholm isn't a schlub, so pair of wingers is an odd way to put it. I get your point. But I also get why that other person was confused and thought the comment was incredulous.

 

[TheImpatientPanther]

I can see the confusion about Gaudreau's skating. Your comment was kinda odd. I get where you're coming from, but I can also see why that guy thought it was absurd.

Gaudreau has around average top speed and acceleration. He's not elite in those categories for skating. However, his edgework, stickwork at speed and evasiveness are near tops in the league and elite. That combined package makes him above average for skating.

He won't win many foot races, he probably won't take off and have a huge gaps on a ton of breakaways... but flat footed/bad position dmen, he'll easily maintain several strides in front of them on a breakaway, he'll be able to have enough space to protect the puck, he'll lose the board battle and then just strip the puck with a nifty stick play, he'll skate in circles at a higher pace without slowing down via evasion and stickhandling, but not a blistering pace... they're kinda different things or tricks used to offset the weaknesses of his pure skating talent.

JG's skating will be a little bit more than adequate, but not much more. This vs Tkachuk where his skating is just barely adequate. Crazy to think that Tkachuk and Gaudreau could still improve their game with the most incremental power and speed improvements to their skating.

Gaudreau's overall skating is slightly above average with an above average cruising speed and average top speed + acceleration. It's really up there, but I would agree he's not really an "elite skater" from the commonly used definition. Combined with Tkachuk who has a below average skating with below average cruising speed + top speed + acceleration and average edgework... yes, that pair of wingers is probably the slowest top speed and acceleration of the offensive winger dynamos out there.

Few people actually would word things this way when talking about forwards though. Few people ever consider wingers a pair unless the centre is significantly lower in tier than the wingers (ie: Panarin and Kane with Anisimov? eons ago). Lindholm isn't a schlub, so pair of wingers is an odd way to put it. I get your point. But I also get why that other person was confused and thought the comment was incredulous.

I'm just curious why some CGY fans say listen to us about our players and can't break things down like you do here.
Or they make wild comments like Gaudreau is slow.

Clearly Gaudreau is one of the better all around skaters in the league, if he was bigger and had more muscle mass, likely not.

This is why I don't listen to most fans opinions on here but will with a very select group

 

[blankall]

Its just funny that the evidence he used is Gaudreau cutting in between two defensemen in transition. Like Darren McCarty has done this as well. Average skaters and above can all do this at the NHL level. It's not proof of anything.

Exactly. These guys are all professional hockey players. They get paid millions of dollars to skate for a living. They are all great skaters and all can skate really fast. It's all relative.

And yes, that clip is BS. The d-men are coming from the points, while Gaudreau has a head start down the middle of the ice. The d-men have to turn direction and have a greater distance to travel.

The fact of the matter is that Gaudreau is not especially fast in one direction. I never said he was a bad skater. In fact, I think he might be the best skater in the NHL. He's just not very fast. Gaudreau is the best skater in the NHL, when it comes to evading, turning, and generally breaking defenders ankles. I would not bet upon in a straight line foot race across the ice though. I've never seen Gaudreau clocked for top speed, but my bet is, compared to the other professional skaters he plays against, below average and "slow".

 

[TheImpatientPanther]

Exactly. These guys are all professional hockey players. They get paid millions of dollars to skate for a living. They are all great skaters and all can skate really fast. It's all relative.

And yes, that clip is BS. The d-men are coming from the points, while Gaudreau has a head start down the middle of the ice. The d-men have to turn direction and have a greater distance to travel.

The fact of the matter is that Gaudreau is not especially fast in one direction. I never said he was a bad skater. In fact, I think he might be the best skater in the NHL. He's just not very fast. Gaudreau is the best skater in the NHL, when it comes to evading, turning, and generally breaking defenders ankles. I would not bet upon in a straight line foot race across the ice though. I've never seen Gaudreau clocked for top speed, but my bet is, compared to the other professional skaters he plays against, below average and "slow".

Makar and McDavid exist

 

[DFF]

Wonder who is the better skater, Huberdeau or Matt Tkachuk

Would be a disappointment for me is Huberdeau is the worse skater

 

[DJJones]

Haven't checked in here in a while. So Gaudreau was slow and Lindholm is bad at defense. That's what we're at hey haha.

I get that transition is part of defense but some people have completely started to ignore the other aspects of defense in favor of it. Yes Tkachuk and Gaudreau are both fantastic at getting the puck out of the zone when they get the puck. The chip passes, the outlets, the fakes to make some room to give it to a defender. All good things that help a team.

But take Gaudreau for example, he's borderline useless at actually getting the puck initially. He won't go into the corner, he stays up to high, and is warry of contact on the boards to the point that sometimes he circles around to try to poke check it instead of getting into a board battle. I honestly don't get how people think he's good at defense. His transition game completely revolves around other people giving him the puck. Lindholm, Backlund, and Tanev are some of the best in the game at that aspect. They can disrupt plays and give Gaudreau the puck. To me, that's what defense is. Transition game is still important but different.

 

[DJJones]

The sample size is small as Lindholm barely spent any time away from Tkachuk last year, but Lindholm was downright bad both offensively and defensively when he didn't have Tkachuk on the ice with him. (The blue square on the bottom left is Lindholm without Tkachuk.)

View attachment 579162

The majority of that time would likely be right after a penalty ended. As Lindholm was our best short handed forward while Tkachuk wasn't trusted on the PK due to lack of foot speed.

 

[CgyFlamesftw]

Wonder who is the better skater, Huberdeau or Matt Tkachuk

Would be a disappointment for me is Huberdeau is the worse skater

If huberdeau is worse than tkachuk then we have a bottom 5 skater in the league. Tkachuk skates in mud, excellent vision and iq. But skating oof.

 

[DFF]

If huberdeau is worse than tkachuk then we have a bottom 5 skater in the league. Tkachuk skates in mud, excellent vision and iq. But skating oof.

Yeah I don’t remember any top players that skates as bad as Tkachuk but I admit I have not watched Huberdeau that much

 

[DJJones]

If huberdeau is worse than tkachuk then we have a bottom 5 skater in the league. Tkachuk skates in mud, excellent vision and iq. But skating oof.

I feel like it would be a known thing if he was worse at skating as Tkachuk.

Like Looch, Tkachuk, Toffoli, injured Monahan. Everyone knows they can't skate and talk about it. I've never heard anyone say and I've never noticed Huberdeau being a poor skater.

 

[blankall]

If huberdeau is worse than tkachuk then we have a bottom 5 skater in the league. Tkachuk skates in mud, excellent vision and iq. But skating oof.

Lol. Huberdeau is not slower than Tkachuk. You can just look at Huberdeau's highlight reels to see him doing all sorts of things Tkachuk can't. Huberdeau habitually carries the puck into zone. He also controls play from the perimeters, skates the blue line, etc... Even if Huberdeau isn't the fastest skater, he has an amazing ability to makes plays at speed:

 

[DFF]

I feel like it would be a known thing if he was worse at skating as Tkachuk.

Like Looch, Tkachuk, Toffoli, injured Monahan. Everyone knows they can't skate and talk about it. I've never heard anyone say and I've never noticed Huberdeau being a poor skater.

It’s crazy that the Flames probably had 4 of the slowest guys in the league…..now just 2 although Lucic is not slow at top speed. Just slow to get going and slow reaction.

 

[DJJones]

It’s crazy that the Flames probably had 4 of the slowest guys in the league…..now just 2 although Lucic is not slow at top speed. Just slow to get going and slow reaction.

Ya as long as he doesn't have to turn or puck handle Lucic is alright haha

 

[Figgy44]

I'm just curious why some CGY fans say listen to us about our players and can't break things down like you do here.
Or they make wild comments like Gaudreau is slow.

Clearly Gaudreau is one of the better all around skaters in the league, if he was bigger and had more muscle mass, likely not.

This is why I don't listen to most fans opinions on here but will with a very select group

Because... I am a bit crazy? I often post walls of text as you can see. That's an auto-ignore for some posters. Many posters on both sides don't have the patience to deal with that.

Most posters are here for fun. Exchanging theses about hockey teams back and forth isn't really fun for many posters, so they condense their posts. A question well posed is a question half answered. These minor details/mix ups are creating major disagreements. Add in a major dash of posters on both sides who don't slow down to review for misunderstandings AND add inflammatory marks... Pardon the pun, Flame war.

I am not attempting to be a gate keeper in how we post. I personally just find more value in having clearly defined conversations to learn more about things I don't know. Add in how easy it is to use the ignore feature to accidentally echo chamber, some posters will never ever get an opportunity to approach a balanced view of things, nor do they care.

Lots of posters on both sides are arguing vehemently with each other in this thread without realizing that they're basically on the same page but different paragraph. I won't deny some posters on both sides are worth ignoring, some who created their accounts only a few weeks ago.

----------------------------

The greatest error so far IMO is that there are MAJOR differences in terms of what people are discussing for "what makes sense for the Panthers or Flames". Lots of similar page, wrong paragraph arguments going on.

What makes sense can be broken down into some of the following non-exhaustive categories:
- Stage of the roster vs contention duration
- 1 year, 3 year, 5+ year for... cap structure, contention, retool/rebuild etc.
- Fixed scenarios (ie: JG walking, ownership mandates)
- Optics
- Fact vs opinion; in a vacuum vs real world (ie: What fans want vs owners/management/realities of the world)
- Trade value (ie: Fit of pieces in 1/3/5+ years, positional need, cap space, age, style etc.)
- Comments on style/skill; discrepancies of style/skill

It's possible that "conflicting" opinions would agree if they were talking about the exact same thing and all it would take is someone ensuring that both posters are looking at it from the same angle and at the same item. But most posters cannot be bothered with that. Forums are supposed to be casual and fun and not serious.

Think... the blind men and the elephant story. All the blind men had a piece of truth that was completely true to them and the objective circumstances. All the blind men engaged in a manner where the way they communicated their subjective and objective truth was incorrect in the entire context of the elephant.

I bridge conversations of multiple parties and take on devil's advocate as required because I enjoy the conversation more that way. But I know I'm different and weird, and I don't expect others to waste effort to do that which they deem is unnecessary.

 

[Homesick]

It’s crazy that the Flames probably had 4 of the slowest guys in the league…..now just 2 although Lucic is not slow at top speed. Just slow to get going and slow reaction.

Jesus, even a blind man could see that Tkachuk is not a horrible skater -Oilers fan

 

[Kranix]

For all the geniuses on this ongoing roundtable, who has the harder slapshot out of the two? That would also go along way to determining which team is better off now.

 

[Rubi]

Because... I am a bit crazy? I often post walls of text as you can see. That's an auto-ignore for some posters. Many posters on both sides don't have the patience to deal with that.

Most posters are here for fun. Exchanging theses about hockey teams back and forth isn't really fun for many posters, so they condense their posts. A question well posed is a question half answered. These minor details/mix ups are creating major disagreements. Add in a major dash of posters on both sides who don't slow down to review for misunderstandings AND add inflammatory marks... Pardon the pun, Flame war.

I am not attempting to be a gate keeper in how we post. I personally just find more value in having clearly defined conversations to learn more about things I don't know. Add in how easy it is to use the ignore feature to accidentally echo chamber, some posters will never ever get an opportunity to approach a balanced view of things, nor do they care.

Lots of posters on both sides are arguing vehemently with each other in this thread without realizing that they're basically on the same page but different paragraph. I won't deny some posters on both sides are worth ignoring, some who created their accounts only a few weeks ago.

----------------------------

The greatest error so far IMO is that there are MAJOR differences in terms of what people are discussing for "what makes sense for the Panthers or Flames". Lots of similar page, wrong paragraph arguments going on.

What makes sense can be broken down into some of the following non-exhaustive categories:
- Stage of the roster vs contention duration
- 1 year, 3 year, 5+ year for... cap structure, contention, retool/rebuild etc.
- Fixed scenarios (ie: JG walking, ownership mandates)
- Optics
- Fact vs opinion; in a vacuum vs real world (ie: What fans want vs owners/management/realities of the world)
- Trade value (ie: Fit of pieces in 1/3/5+ years, positional need, cap space, age, style etc.)
- Comments on style/skill; discrepancies of style/skill

It's possible that "conflicting" opinions would agree if they were talking about the exact same thing and all it would take is someone ensuring that both posters are looking at it from the same angle and at the same item. But most posters cannot be bothered with that. Forums are supposed to be casual and fun and not serious.

Think... the blind men and the elephant story. All the blind men had a piece of truth that was completely true to them and the objective circumstances. All the blind men engaged in a manner where the way they communicated their subjective and objective truth was incorrect in the entire context of the elephant.

I bridge conversations of multiple parties and take on devil's advocate as required because I enjoy the conversation more that way. But I know I'm different and weird, and I don't expect others to waste effort to do that which they deem is unnecessary.

TL;DR

 

[Walkingthroughforest]

For all the geniuses on this ongoing roundtable, who has the harder slapshot out of the two? That would also go along way to determining which team is better off now.

The better question is who has more Claude Giroux adjusted points?

 

[Figgy44]

If huberdeau is worse than tkachuk then we have a bottom 5 skater in the league. Tkachuk skates in mud, excellent vision and iq. But skating oof.

It's not as simple as that IMO. If I'm not mistaken, Tkachuk and Huberdeau are relatively on par with each other. Their slick stick handling and crazy angle shots/passes are used to make up some of that skating. Tkachuk often travels much further for his role on the line which amplifies his poor skating, but he's always in the thick of things. Huberdeau skates a lot less than Tkachuk and is occasionally positionally poor due to that. Skating more could slow him down, but give him more dangerous opportunities in different areas.

However, assuming that acceleration, cruising speed and top speed are on par with Huberdeau and Tkachuk, one of the big differences I noticed is the path they take. Jagr often said he skated slowly, but was always in the right place. His travel is efficient.

If we are saying the players are skating 1 m/s and typically traverses to a point 20 meters away, but Tkachuk needs 30-35 meters to get to that spot and Huberdeau typically only needs 25-30 (because avoiding opposition or position relative to line mates), then Huberdeau is going to seem faster and Tkachuk slower + more likely to be intercepted by opposition before he reaches his target location.

This is apparent for instance if Huberdeau skates in, glides on the perimeter and accelerates/cuts in as needed vs if Tkachuk always skates hard to receive the pass behind the net and then glides to the front of the net, the duration/speed/energy usage difference will be very apparent by a few seconds per play.

I believe the marginal differences between the two teams is that Calgary struggles to take the o Zone to set up a play, but once set up is very good for quality plays. I don't know how the o Zone aspect will still work, but I don't think they've downgraded their quality of play options in the o Zone too drastically from last season. Florida is opposite in that they seem to be able to take the o Zone easily, but occasionally struggle to get quality plays and thus circle around a lot in the o Zone. That's where Tkachuk can help them.

I think Tkachuk will be asked to play those types of identical lines in Florida. I don't have confidence that Huberdeau will play identical lines in Calgary. It'll probably come down to line chemistry and coaching plan to see whether Huberdeau does similar stuff. The same can be said for Weegar.

Flames most criticized acceleration and top speed last season (below or WAY below average speeds): Andersson, Monahan, Tkachuk, Lucic, Gubranson and Toffoli. 6/22 skaters is 27%. That's one per forward line and two defense pairings. That's too high.

This season, barring more moves, it'll basically be: Andersson, Huberdeau, Lucic and Toffoli. That's still 3/4 forward lines and 1/3 defense pairings, but that's also around a 10% reduction of skating issues (18%) on the roster depending on whether there's a marginal increase in Huberdeau's to Tkachuk's travel time around the ice. I think that type of energy savings from other skaters to cover for that is quite substantial. This increase in average roster speed likely also helps greatly to do zone entries via committee vs previously deferring the vast majority of everything to Gaudreau in the past.

But again, we shall have to see what the real game plan and play book is like on the ice.

 

[Howboutthempanthers]

The problem with Tkachuk is that he's not always on. Looks great on the highlight reel, but also disappears. Zero points and minus four in the last three games is the playoffs.

Pretty much the same frustration you had with huberdeau. Hopefully the change is good for both parties.

See, this is an issue I have. Huberdeau lead the team in scoring in the playoffs last season. All of a sudden after being one of the players who struggled a bit this playoffs, he's not a playoff performer. It's very fishy to me. Yeah, and this mostly is talking about Panthers' fans, all of a sudden his playoff performance is intolerable.

 

[Howboutthempanthers]

Lol. Huberdeau is not slower than Tkachuk. You can just look at Huberdeau's highlight reels to see him doing all sorts of things Tkachuk can't. Huberdeau habitually carries the puck into zone. He also controls play from the perimeters, skates the blue line, etc... Even if Huberdeau isn't the fastest skater, he has an amazing ability to makes plays at speed:

The key with Huberdeau is he has to move his feet. He has great hands, but he tends to be frozen in one spot. His skating is not his best tool, but he has to move his feet to make his puck handling affective.

 

[blankall]

See, this is an issue I have. Huberdeau lead the team in scoring in the playoffs last season. All of a sudden after being one of the players who struggled a bit this playoffs, he's not a playoff performer. It's very fishy to me. Yeah, and this mostly is talking about Panthers' fans, all of a sudden his playoff performance is intolerable.

We never even got that from Gaudreau. Gaudreau always disappeared in big games/series. He had plenty of points last year, but only 1 point and -4 in those last 3 big games against Edmonton. In his defence a lot of that wasn't always his fault, as his team always hung him out to dry. Being undersized, he really has no way to cope when he's been doulbe or even triple teamed by big defenders on the other side.

As for Tkachuk, his pestiness always seemed to disappear too. He seemed capable of winning an entire series at points, but then would be non-existent.

All the Flames fans are hoping, that as you say, it was just a one off with Huberdeau last year. They, however, watched Gaudreau disappear multiple times, when paired with either Monahan (the pre-injury good one) or Tkachuk.

 

[Figgy44]

See, this is an issue I have. Huberdeau lead the team in scoring in the playoffs last season. All of a sudden after being one of the players who struggled a bit this playoffs, he's not a playoff performer. It's very fishy to me. Yeah, and this mostly is talking about Panthers' fans, all of a sudden his playoff performance is intolerable.

Tkachuk and Huberdeau both have a strange coincidence where they were both obviously not the best player on their team, but attract criticisms on par if not more than if they were the best player. Both guys were inexplicably asked to to carry the team on their back, even when it seemed obvious there were other guys who were supposed to be the guys to truly carry the team on their back. It's kinda strange.

 

[JPeeper]

See, this is an issue I have. Huberdeau lead the team in scoring in the playoffs last season. All of a sudden after being one of the players who struggled a bit this playoffs, he's not a playoff performer. It's very fishy to me. Yeah, and this mostly is talking about Panthers' fans, all of a sudden his playoff performance is intolerable.

Well Tkachuk in his entire post season career has been invisible/terrible. I can count on 1 hand the amount of post season games Chucky showed up for (spoiler, it's 2), and he's played more than Huberdeau (who has 6 more post season points). I thought this would be the year, but alas only Gaudreau (and lindy) showed up and seemed to want it.

Florida got one of the best Flames post-season players in Bennett and one of the Flames worst in Tkachuk. Tkachuk will never hit 100 points again, Gaudreau propped his point totals up so much.