If you see your house is starting to catch on fire and you can somehow work out a deal with the flames to come back in, say, a year, well, you’d do that — wouldn’t you?
That feels a little bit like what happened to Calgary Flames GM Brad Treliving who, in the midst of the summer from hell vis a vis a talent defection from his Cup-contending team, pulled off a stunner of a blockbuster late Friday night (as first reported by our Frank Seravalli).
With little wiggle room in terms of options, Treliving shipped restricted free agent Matthew Tkachuk to the Florida Panthers for star winger Jonathan Huberdeau, defenseman MacKenzie Weegar, prospect Cole Schwindt and a lottery-protected first-round pick in 2025. A conditional fourth-round pick goes to Florida as well.
The Panthers immediately provided Tkachuk with an eight-year extension carrying an annual average cap hit of $9.5 million.
This is the kind of trade that gets done only by GMs who have a strong stomach and a stronger belief in their plan. Could Treliving and his counterpart Bill Zito in Florida have figured out a way to do the deal at a more media-friendly time? Sure. But let’s not quibble.
Read the full article here.
