Tkachuk traded to Florida

[Gentle Man]

If yall want a sensible Flames fan take on Tkachuk, just look at @OvermanKingGainer posts. He was pretty right about Benny

 

[ucanthanzalthetruth]

personally i am very sad to see huby go. panthers were his favorite team and he wanted to play here. i think it was a mistake giving up huby and weegar. they solidified both our offense, defense, power play and power kill. they are huge pieces for our team and i don't like giving them up!!!!!! hope this doesn't come back to bite us in the arse. i guess i have to put my trust in in our g.m. and front office, but i still don't like the trade.

Weegar wasn't signing here. Pretty clear Huberdeau would have. So the question is would you rather have 1 year rental of Weegar, 8 x 10 of a 30 year old player, and a bottom 10 pick or 8 years of a similar player at 25?

I could be persuaded either way but it's not like this trade hurts the future. I really hate giving up the pick, it's poor asset management but hardly life changing.

 

[KW]

Once we have the cap space, the pressure is on Zito to find the right additions. If he succeeds, there’s absolutely no reason to worry about the picks, but if he fails, it’s gonna become a disaster.

Zito’s basically saying “hold my beer”, so… holding…

 

[batting1k]

Pretty clear Huberdeau would have

I’m not entirely sold on that

 

[Gentle Man]

Weegar wasn't signing here. Pretty clear Huberdeau would have. So the question is would you rather have 1 year rental of Weegar, 8 x 10 of a 30 year old player, and a bottom 10 pick or 8 years of a similar player at 25?

I could be persuaded either way but it's not like this trade hurts the future. I really hate giving up the pick, it's poor asset management but hardly life changing.

You have to look at the pick this way, and it won't hurt at all.

It was necessary to get the 8th year.

7 years at 76 was 10.85 million. More money against the cap we already didn't have. Giving the first persuaded Calgary to help us out to give the extra year and push Matt down to a cap of 9.5, less than Barkov.

Plus it's lottery protected. If we suck and miss, we get to make that pick anyway

 

[ucanthanzalthetruth]

I’m not entirely sold on that

I'm aware of who his agent is but I think he liked playing here and he would have re-upped. That said fair enough it's not a guarantee. I feel like I'm on crazy pills reading the main board acting like Florida gave up two 23 year olds with 5 years left.

Main board 2 months ago: Lol Florida was such a pretender
Today: WTF they were so close why aren't they running it back

 

[WaitingForThatCab]

You guys know I'm down on Weegar but this is psycho.

To be clear, I'm not shocked that we traded Weegar and Hubs, but I'm a little concerned at how many friggin first round picks the team is giving up right now.

 

[OvermanKingGainer]

If yall want a sensible Flames fan take on Tkachuk, just look at @OvermanKingGainer posts. He was pretty right about Benny

Just a bit of my thoughts on the player:

- incredible hands in tight, probably second only to Joe Pavelski in terms of scoring goals near the net or while deflecting point shots.
- elite vision. Mikael Backlund wasn't a 50pt guy until Tkachuk's rookie gear, when suddenly Backlund began to center our best line. For all the attention Gaudreau deservedly got, it was Tkachuk and Backlund who drove the goal differentials most of the time by seeing the other team's best players in the other team's zone, and still producing offensively
- excellent defensive zone game, will never cheat. Used to be part of the second-best 5-on-5 line in the league with Mikael Backlund and Michael Frolik, and then when Frolik aged out that line kept rolling with Andrew Mangiapane. Last year the Gaudreau - Lindholm - Tkachuk line was by every measure the best line in the NHL. All three guys deserve credit for their contribution at all ends.
- strong cycle game, it'd be really cool to see what he could do with a linemate like Barkov as typically in Calgary he was always the "biggest" guy on his line
- not the most fleet of foot, so backchecking typically isn't his forte, but still has high IQ and plays the angles well. Most of his shifts end in the offensive zone anyways, regardless of where they start.
- in the past, he's only ever played with Bennett when Bennett was on the opposite wing for brief stints. I do think stylistically those two might be a little prone to over-cycling, but maybe if you added someone speedy like Duclair to bring a bit more pace it could be a great line.
- He probably won't hit 100 without Gaudreau on his line, but he could still come in around 85 points or so going forward most years. Maybe hit the high 90s if you guys stack a line with Barkov. Probably better for team success to have Barkov, Tkachuk, and Lundell on their own lines though I think.
- Much is made about his lack of playoff success, but it's a little unfair to him. Will circle back to this after these point form notes
- he's a student of the game, can break plays down like a coach. his off-ice analysis is always insightful.
- The after-whistle antics are entertaining, but he's not really a tough guy. He's more of a troll. The media makes more of it than anything. It doesn't adversely or positive affect the team success.

Now to that last one, playoff performance
2016-17 he was a rookie, and they ran into a goalie who was going full Hasek. Tough to make a conclusion.

2018-19 was a tough spot for Tkachuk, because his line was being tasked with checking Landeskog-Mackinnon-Rantanen. This did reveal a bit of a weakness in that Tkachuk's speed wasn't really suited for a checking line against an elite skater like MacKinnon, but guys like Lindholm, Hanifin, Hamonic were the guys I would actually identify as being playoff no-shows.

2019-20 Tkachuk was actually pretty damn good in the playoffs. He got hurt early in the dallas series and missed the rest of it, and the Flames were unable to replace him on the Backlund-Mangiapane line, although if I were coach I would have put Lindholm there at RW and had Bennett centre Gaudreau, instead of putting Tobias Rieder at LW where Tkachuk played (ugh... no wonder the Stars beat us). He didn't disappear though. If we have Tkachuk, I think we advance to the next round easily.

2021-2022 Tkachuk was fine. Did his scoring come in spurts? Sure. It happens. Even guys like Patrick Kane are guilty of that. Bigger issue, much like three years prior, was Lindholm's disappearing act, and Hanifin's atrocious play, along with Tanev's injury, a legendarily bad call costing us what probably allows that series to fo to a game 6 then seven then WCF. Tkachuk was however playing with a broken hand though so he probably wasn't at his best.

 

[KaraLupin]

I don't even think we overpaid, I think the value from both sides was fair.

Strictly speaking, the trade boils down to this:

- Florida receives 8 years of Matt Tkachuk signed at a market friendly $9.5M AAV.

- Calgary receives 1 year of Huberdeau and 1 year of Weegar at a cost of only 60% their market value, three-years of a developing third liner in Schwindt, a mid-6 player for three years starting in 2028/29 (the most likely outcome for a 2025 pick in the 20 range), and an exclusive 1-year negotiating period with Huber/Weegar.

I don't know about you, but I think 8-years guaranteed Tkachuk at less money is valued maybe even better than the Calgary package. That's obviously before going into things like cap flexibility that we get not signing Huberdeau and Weegar, future cap flexibility Calgary gets from not signing anybody, the return Huber/Weegar could get at the deadline, time value of prospects/picks, etc.

Or you can look at it another way and assume Huber/Weegar are signed at combined $17M AAV, but you subtract that value by the risk that they don't sign. Then on our side you add back the cap flexibility and what we can do with the extra $7.5M AAV in subsequent years is important to consider.

Comparing a Huberdeau with one cheap year and 7 years (7 years just to make the math easier) signed at $10M starting age 30 vs. Tkachuk signed at 8 years for $9.5M starting age 24. Assuming they're pretty much equivalent in prime-year contributions, this obviously favors Panthers. Huberdeau gives you 3 prime years for $26M vs. 3 Tkachuk prime years at $28.5M. But then you get 5 more Tkachuk prime years for $47.5M vs. 5 non-prime Huberdeau years for $50M.

For the $7.5M savings in Tkachuk vs. Huber/Weegar, you can probably afford a defenseman equivalent to age 30 Weegar, and maybe one that's younger, but that' can't happen until next year. So this part favors Flames.

Both the above sort of even it out value-wise, but Calgary has the very significant risk that both Huber and Weegar don't sign. Schwindt and a 2025 1st are compensation for that which I think is fair, one future asset for each of Huber and Weegar.

Don't what to say here, 2 million difference in a cap rising economy is essentially nothing and you can mix and match lower tier pieces via trade and free agency to accommodate that.

Take into consideration Hubie was a late bloomer, take into consideration that Tkachuk's skating is already average, so his footspeed will decline at a younger age than Hubie (theoretically), and also more physical and might start to rack up lots of injuries heading into his 30s.

As an outside fan, Florida was on the uptrend in my books for at least the last three years, and the playoff exit this season doesn't change that, just needed MINOR retooling. I don't see why Hubie wouldn't have been down with resigning in Florida, team on the up, great city to live in. Weegar is still valuable to the team, but far less impact than Hubie, so trade him at the deadline for a nice haul, fine.

People are making way too much out of 2.5M saved capspace, as in reality it's very low percentage of capspace and can certainly be made up for by some nice bottom 6 and bottom pairing signings and trades. The age difference is the only legit argument for this being a good trade imo, but none of us can call it right now, gotta wait to see how Tkachuk performs in his first year...


Thanks to the franchise regular season points scorer. Watched about 20 Panthers games this season and he was electric.

 

[Mogo]

The 1st round pick is what bother me on that trade.

Weegar+ Hubs for Tkachuk.

Awesome for Florida
Awesome for Calgary.

By next summer Weegar should have been replaced by Zito.
Florida is turning into a top destination and players want to join and chase the Cup and there’s 15 million dead cap dropping out

I hate giving out all these 1rst like there candy

We have nothing to trade for deadline deals upcoming seasons

 

[BB88]

Yep, that's what makes the trade bearable. I think adding Weegar on top of everything makes the trade heavily in favour of the flames unless they find a way to f*** it up.

Huberdeau was a late bloomer.

Huberdeau has played on the first line in past years as a 90 point player, and on the second line he was the main catalyst for offense.

I'm not sure Tkachuk can drive a line offensively like Huberdeau can. We might be underappreciating the fact we had 2 top 10 point producers on different lines to spread out the offense.

Thats what im saying though, statistically Huberdeau has had the clear edge offensively for the last 4 years.

I do think Tkachuk will be more productive over the next 8 years. That has more to do with Huberdeau's eventual decline than Tkachuk ever reaching the same offensive heights. Which im fine with, since he brings other elements to the game Huberdeau doesn't. I just don't think Tkachuk>Huberdeau at this moment.

I think Hubs+ Weegar for Tkachuk would have been awesome for both sided.

Tkachuk locked up 8x9.5 makes him by far the most valuable asset on that trade(even if Hubs& Weegar had new contracts).

The best powerforward in the game signed through his prime for less than 10. You just can’t get that via trade.

Also yes Hubs was a late bloomer but so are powerforwards, they hit their prime a bit later.

2nd line to me next year should be
Verhaeghe- Lundell- Reinhart and that should produce at high rate.
& whenever Duclair comes back Bennett- Duclair create the 3rd line

 

[BB88]

Once we have the cap space, the pressure is on Zito to find the right additions. If he succeeds, there’s absolutely no reason to worry about the picks, but if he fails, it’s gonna become a disaster.

Zito’s basically saying “hold my beer”, so… holding…

With the way players want to go to Florida (Tkachuk/Giroux) I don’t see it as problem.

He can call a player and ask hey would you like to play on a line with Tkachuk& Barkov or next to Ekblad.

 

[Jean Luc Discard]

I hate giving out all these 1rst like there candy

We have nothing to trade for deadline deals upcoming seasons

They have Duke who they have to trade but don't expect much in return.

For the next two years or so... if they need to address deficiencies in the lineup then it's going to happen by signing bargain bin finds or relying on their prospects.

 

[BB88]

I hate giving out all these 1rst like there candy

We have nothing to trade for deadline deals upcoming seasons

Yep, that 1st is something I don’t get either

Don't what to say here, 2 million difference in a cap rising economy is essentially nothing and you can mix and match lower tier pieces via trade and free agency to accommodate that.

Take into consideration Hubie was a late bloomer, take into consideration that Tkachuk's skating is already average, so his footspeed will decline at a younger age than Hubie (theoretically), and also more physical and might start to rack up lots of injuries heading into his 30s.

As an outside fan, Florida was on the uptrend in my books for at least the last three years, and the playoff exit this season doesn't change that, just needed MINOR retooling. I don't see why Hubie wouldn't have been down with resigning in Florida, team on the up, great city to live in. Weegar is still valuable to the team, but far less impact than Hubie, so trade him at the deadline for a nice haul, fine.

People are making way too much out of 2.5M saved capspace, as in reality it's very low percentage of capspace and can certainly be made up for by some nice bottom 6 and bottom pairing signings and trades. The age difference is the only legit argument for this being a good trade imo, but none of us can call it right now, gotta wait to see how Tkachuk performs in his first year...


Thanks to the franchise regular season points scorer. Watched about 20 Panthers games this season and he was electric.

I mean nobody has Hubs as a great skater.

Floridas core is now between 20-26y and it’s one of the best if not the best in the league.
They’ll reload the depth in a year

& Florida needed more of a Tkachuk type player than Hubs.
I mean Hubs is awesome, one of the best wingers in the game but Florida played like it was regular season in the playoffs and Hubs with his style was a non threat on pp. Everyone knew every single time what he wanted to do on pp and it wasn’t shooting to score.

Florida got destroyed by their soft play and zero working pp. Tkachuk is the better goal scorer and more versatile player while being 5 years younger on top of it

 

[Gentle Man]

Yep, that 1st is something I don’t get either



I mean nobody has Hubs as a great skater.

Floridas core is now between 20-26y and it’s one of the best if not the best in the league.
They’ll reload the depth in a year

& Florida needed more of a Tkachuk type player than Hubs.
I mean Hubs is awesome, one of the best wingers in the game but Florida played like it was regular season in the playoffs and Hubs with his style was a non threat on pp. Everyone knew every single time what he wanted to do on pp and it wasn’t shooting to score.

Florida got destroyed by their soft play and zero working pp

The first was payment to get the 8th year. It saved 1.35 M of cap space per year

 

[BB88]

The first was payment to get the 8th year. It saved 1.35 M of cap space per year

You don’t know that and they still gave up Hubs+ Weegar+ prospect.
It would have been incredible difficult for Tkachuk to demand more than Barkov.

The other rumoured teams didn’t even come close to offering that.

Apparently Blues best asset was Tarasenko and Carolina had Necas in play as part of the package.
That 1st was useless, they could have used that to get rid of Hornqvist contract

 

[Felidae]

I really don't mean to slag on Huberdeau, because I liked his time here, I just think his contributions are being overstated and the Huber vs. Tkachuk comparisons are off. They are both good players, but there's a reason why so many people in the game rave about Tkachuk.

Last year Huberdeau had a lot of points, but it came in special situations like power play, 4v4, 3v3. At 5v5 playing against lower competition, he was only 14th highest in points with 50. For comparison, Gaudreau was tops at 72. So while both had the same amount of points, Gaudreau had more quality points. Tkachuk by the way was third with 64 points.

I feel the same way about the majority gushing over the Tkachuk trade. Seems like shiny new toy syndrome to me. Especially since many seemed to have soured a bit on Huberdeau, with the powerplay and postseason performances. I do wonder if Huberdeau's 2020-21 performance happened this year if some would still be fine with this trade. That's ignoring all the other pieces involved.



That explains this season, but not previous ones were he was still on pace for 90+ points the last 4 seasons. Huberdeau during those years outscored Tkachuk 5v5 (not by much mind you, but getting points in special situations matters too). For instance, in 2018, Huberdeau had 48 EV points despite scoring 23 less points than this year. The overreliance on special situations seems to be the outlier, not the norm. Which would explain his career year. Yet even then he's a consistent 90+ point player since 2018.

Does Huberdeau really drive his line? I'm not sure that's completely true. He cheats offensively and so has more opportunity to make those sweet passes on transition. And again, a lot of his points were in special situations. Also, looking at first/second assists, he has a relatively higher ratio of secondary assist compared to other top offensive players. He's also got good stats with pass attempts and connected passes, etc., but it's more in the 10-15 range usually. Huber being a late bloomer is a bad thing...he's going to be past his physical peak soon, there's nothing that will stop that happening.

Its not like his teammates were much better on the defensive side of things. He outscored his regular linemates by a significant amount (neither of which were Barkov for the most part) I'm not sure how you can argue he doesn't drive his line.

There's lots of stats out there that show Tkachuk as a line driver even when he wasn't playing with Lindholm and Gaudreau. He got 77 points playing with Frolik and Backlund in his third year... Huber didn't exceed 70 points until his seventh year playing on the top line with Barkov. Everyone talks about how Tkachuk benefited from playing with those two, but pretty sure those two also had career years playing with him...Tkachuk is also much better defensively and adds other intangibles, which needs to be taken into account when comparing the two players.

. But im pretty sure Huberdeau was already playing with Barkov on the 1st line before he exceeded 70 points. I think that's just a natural progression more than anything as we've both acknowledged Huberdeau's prime started later. He's already proven this season he doesn't need Barkov as a regular linemate to produce elite offensive numbers.

As for Tkachuk. Him having career years along with his linemates kinda helps my point. They were the best line this season and that chemistry likely won't be replicated which is why I'm anticipating a noticeable decline in production.

I also do wonder about his defensive contributions. He's had the luxury of playing with elite defensive players throughout his career. First Backlund, now Lindholm. I wouldn't be surprised if those affected his advanced defensive stats. Which comes back to my concern of him being the main driver of a line without his production and defensive contributions taking a hit.

 

[Jean Luc Discard]

I feel the same way about the majority gushing over the Tkachuk trade. Seems like shiny new toy syndrome to me. Especially since many seemed to have soured a bit on Huberdeau, with the powerplay and postseason performances. I do wonder if Huberdeau's 2020-21 performance happened this year if some would still be fine with this trade. That's ignoring all the other pieces involved.



That explains this season, but not previous ones were he was still on pace for 90+ points the last 4 seasons. Huberdeau during those years outscored Tkachuk 5v5 (not by much mind you, but getting points in special situations matters too). For instance, in 2018, Huberdeau had 48 EV points despite scoring 23 less points than this year. The overreliance on special situations seems to be the outlier, not the norm. Which would explain his career year. Yet even then he's a consistent 90+ point player since 2018.

Its not like his teammates were much better on the defensive side of things. He outscored his regular linemates by a significant amount (neither of which were Barkov for the most part) I'm not sure how you can argue he doesn't drive his line.



. But im pretty sure Huberdeau was already playing with Barkov on the 1st line before he exceeded 70 points. I think that's just a natural progression more than anything as we've both acknowledged Huberdeau's prime started later. He's already proven this season he doesn't need Barkov as a regular linemate to produce elite offensive numbers.

As for Tkachuk. Him having career years along with his linemates kinda helps my point. They were the best line this season and that chemistry likely won't be replicated which is why I'm anticipating a noticeable decline in production.

I also do wonder about his defensive contributions. He's had the luxury of playing with elite defensive players throughout his career. First Backlund, now Lindholm. I wouldn't be surprised if those affected his advanced defensive stats. Which comes back to my concern of him being the main driver of a line without his production and defensive contributions taking a hit.

Everything you said boils down to the paradigm of first looking at Huby's stats sheet and then rationalizing that he must be a good player because he has all these points. But I'm not solely looking at the point totals... I'm looking at the entire body of work he does or doesn't do on the ice.

I said this like four years ago already... Huby is not a good player when you look at the value he provides. He does nothing defensively and if he isn't scoring points then he was a net negative on this team. He drives his own line as much as there is a need to carry the puck from the neutral zone to the o-zone. Outside of that, he's a boat anchor.

But I was crazy even for suggesting that Huby is not a top5-10 elite player and he shouldn't be signed for an extension contract. But Huby's not around anymore, is he? He'll continue to score points for the team who ever ends up employing him but you'll also see plenty of ppl complaining about him because there's not a high correlation between him scoring points and that particular team winning games. The big difference for that phenomenon to happen is that he doesn't have the protective coating anymore which he had accrued by getting drafted, winning the calder and playing for 10 years for the Panthers.

 

[Dread Clawz]

Once we have the cap space, the pressure is on Zito to find the right additions. If he succeeds, there’s absolutely no reason to worry about the picks, but if he fails, it’s gonna become a disaster.

Zito’s basically saying “hold my beer”, so… holding…

I really hope we can land Dumba next summer, that would be huge.

 

[BB88]

I really hope we can land Dumba next summer, that would be huge.

He’s running the risk of gettint Weegar contract at the same age and Weegar is better.

Florida needs a high end defensive Dman.
Someone who can shutdown when the game is on the line.
That past blueline was very offense heavy

 

[Dread Clawz]

He’s running the risk of gettint Weegar contract at the same age and Weegar is better.

Florida needs a high end defensive Dman.
Someone who can shutdown when the game is on the line.
That past blueline was very offense heavy

The problem is there isn't anyone like that on the market next summer. EJ is good, but he'll be 34 next summer. Dumo is gonna be 31 and has had a lot of injuries. I guess signing two guys like Graves and Soucy would be appealing.

 

[BB88]

The problem is there isn't anyone like that on the market next summer. EJ is good, but he'll be 34 next summer. Dumo is gonna be 31 and has had a lot of injuries. I guess signing two guys like Graves and Soucy would be appealing.

Not right now.
But who thought last summer that all of Tkachuk, Gaudreau, Hubs, Weegar would have new teams?

Bjorkstrand and McDonagh were victims of flat cap.

Next summer Zito will have a shot at taking advantage of another flat cap year

 

[Jean Luc Discard]

I really hope we can land Dumba next summer, that would be huge.

If ppl thought that there should be a clear upgrade on Weegar then Dumba55 isn't the solution you're looking for.

 

[violaswallet]

Not right now.
But who thought last summer that all of Tkachuk, Gaudreau, Hubs, Weegar would have new teams?

Bjorkstrand and McDonagh were victims of flat cap.

Next summer Zito will have a shot at taking advantage of another flat cap year

That’s my guess too. It’s going to be weird 3D chess with BZ

 

[BB88]

That’s my guess too. It’s going to be weird 3D chess with BZ

They have 15M of dead cap dropping out and no extensions for Weegar or Hubs.

Longterm wise it was smart business to have your 2 franchise forwards locked up now