Transaction Retrospective: Panthers Acquire Matthew Tkachuk

Four years ago, the NHL world was hit with a blockbuster trade between the Calgary Flames and Florida Panthers. The Flames dealt Matthew Tkachuk, freshly off signing an eight-year, $76MM extension, along with a 2025 fourth-round pick to the Flames for Jonathan Huberdeau, MacKenzie Weegar, a conditional 2025 first-round pick, and Cole Schwindt.

I won’t spend too much time on the Panthers for this retrospective. Tkachuk’s impact on Florida is already well known at this point. The eldest son of Hall of Famer Keith Tkachuk, Matthew, has become a foundational piece of the Panthers’ core and has helped them reach the Stanley Cup Final in three out of his four years with the team, winning it twice.

Meanwhile, this trade has gone a much different direction for the Flames. Fully engulfed in a rebuild, the trade tree from Calgary’s perspective has grown considerably.

A few weeks after the trade, the Flames signed Huberdeau to a massive eight-year, $84MM extension. The former Calder Trophy winner was coming off the best season of his career with the Panthers, scoring 30 goals and 115 points in 80 games with a +35 rating, averaging more than 19 minutes of ice time per game. The Flames hoped that Huberdeau’s offensive prowess would help keep Calgary competitive, despite trading one of their highest-scoring players.

At the time, the Flames were on the up-and-up. They finished first in the Pacific Division in the 2021-22 season and reached the Second Round of the Stanley Cup playoffs before the Edmonton Oilers knocked them out in five games. Huberdeau wasn’t nearly as physical as Tkachuk, but he did outscore him during the 2021-22 campaign by 11 points.

Unfortunately, Huberdeau hasn’t gotten anywhere close to living up to those expectations. Throughout his four years with the Flames, Huberdeau has scored 65 goals and 194 points in 291 games with a -49 rating. That production is good for 18 goals and 55 points over an 82-game average. That’s fair offensive output for a second-line player, but not nearly good enough to warrant being one of the league’s highest-paid players for the last few years.

However, it wasn’t all bad for the Flames. Weegar also signed a long-term extension with Calgary after the trade, agreeing to an eight-year, $50MM extension a few months later. Weegar arguably became the Flames’ best defenseman, scoring 35 goals and 151 points in 304 games while averaging 22:48 of ice time per game. Additionally, Weegar offered the added benefit of being able to play both sides of the blue line really well, which isn’t common among defensemen.

Ultimately, because they are rebuilding, the Flames moved Weegar this past season, dealing him to the Utah Mammoth for Olli Määttä, forward prospect Jonathan Castagna, Utah’s 2026 second-round pick, the Rangers’ 2026 second-round pick, and Ottawa’s 2026 second-round pick.

Primarily due to the Weegar trade, the trade tree for the Flames has been expanded dramatically. Calgary used the first-round pick acquired from the Panthers to draft Cullen Potter with the 32nd overall pick of the 2025 NHL Draft, who is now playing for the NCAA’s Michigan State University after spending two years at Arizona State University.

At the 2026 NHL Draft, Calgary traded Utah’s 2026 second-round pick and their own 2026 third-round pick to the Carolina Hurricanes for Nashville’s 2026 second-round pick. They used that pick to select netminder Tobias Trejbal 42nd overall.

Meanwhile, the Flames included the Rangers’ 2026 second-round pick in a larger trade with the New Jersey Devils. Calgary moved defenseman Étienne Morin, the Rangers’ pick, Colorado’s conditional 2028 first-round pick, and Vegas’s conditional 2027 first-round pick to the Devils for Simon Nemec and Maxim Tsyplakov.

Lastly, Calgary used Ottawa’s 2026 second-round pick to select forward Alan Shaikhlislamov with the 55th overall pick. Meanwhile, the Flames also used Määttä as a throw-in for the Blake Coleman trade with the Minnesota Wild, where Calgary acquired Jacob Middleton, a 2029 second-round pick, a 2027 third-round pick, and a 2028 fourth-round pick.

It is difficult to connect all of the Flames’ new assets to the original Tkachuk trade since they included other assets in their later trades. However, whether or not they knew it at the time, trading Tkachuk to the Panthers in 2022 sparked a years-long rebuild in southern Alberta.