The Calgary Flames have traded forward Matthew Tkachuk and a conditional 2025 fourth-round pick to the Florida Panthers for Jonathan Huberdeau, MacKenzie Weegar, Cole Schwindt and a conditional 2025 first-round pick, the club announced Friday.
The Athletic’s Jeremy Rutherford reported that Tkachuk signed an eight-year extension with the Panthers worth an average annual value of $9.5 million.
WE HAVE A TRADE TO ANNOUNCE!
The #Flames have acquired Jonathan Huberdeau, MacKenzie Weegar, Cole Schwindt and a conditional 2025 first round pick from the Florida Panthers!
— Calgary Flames (@NHLFlames) July 23, 2022
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BREAKING: Matthew Tkachuk has been traded to Florida and signed an eight-year contract extension worth $76 million, per source. #stlblues
— Jeremy Rutherford (@jprutherford) July 23, 2022
Tkachuk, 24, had 42 goals and 104 points in 82 games with the Flames in the 2021-22 regular season. He added four goals and 10 points in 12 playoff games as the Flames fell to the Edmonton Oilers in the second round.
The Flames originally selected Tkachuk with the No. 6 pick in the 2016 NHL Draft. The 6’2″, 202-pound left wing scored 152 goals and 382 points in 431 games over six regular seasons with Calgary.
Huberdeau, 29, had 30 goals and 115 points in 80 games with the Panthers in 2021-22. The 6’1″, 202-pound left wing added one goal and five points in 10 playoff games; in 671 career games with the Panthers, the 2011 No. 3 pick scored 198 goals and 613 points.
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Weegar, 28, is a 6’0″, 200-pound right-handed defenseman. He scored eight goals and 44 points while averaging 23:22 in 80 games with the Panthers last season. He added an assist in 10 playoff games with Florida.
Schwindt, 21, is a 6’2″, 182-pound right-handed center who was selected by the Panthers in the third round of the 2019 NHL Draft. He had 19 goals and 40 points in 72 games in the American League in Hockey with the Charlotte Checkers last year.
Both Huberdeau and Weegar will become unrestricted free agents in 2023. Huberdeau has one year left on his $5.9 million cap hit deal; Weegar is signed through the end of the season with a $3.25 million cap hit. When the new deals for Huberdeau and Weegar go into effect, the existing contracts of Milan Lucic and Sean Monahan will have expired.
Defensively, the Flames now have Weegar, Chris Tanev, Rasmus Andersson, Noah Hanifin, Nikita Zadorov, Juuso Valimaki and Connor Mackey under contract through the 2022-23 season, with Oliver Kylington the lone player to sign.
We’ll have a lot more analysis on this trade in the coming days and weeks.