BenFred: Details of Matthew Tkachuk’s trade to Florida should make bummed Blues fans feel better

Well, it was fun while it lasted.

The thought of Matthew Tkachuk wearing The Note made our imaginations run wild.

Reality cross-checked the daydream late Friday night, when news broke that Tkachuk had been traded to Florida, where the St. Louis product, son of Blues alum Keith, signed an eight-year deal with the Panthers worth a reported $76 million.

The $9.5 million average annual value should not be a shocker. Tkachuk is that good, and the team on his preferred list of landing spots was going to get the best and first chance at locking up the 24-year-old phenom long-term. Florida capitalized on the same situation so many were hoping the Blues could and would. Tkachuk, unless he is traded again, is now a Panther through the 2029-30 season.

The stunner here was what the Panthers agreed to part with from a team that won the President’s Trophy last season. Let’s go line by line. Calgary got . . .

People are also reading…

• Jonathan Huberdeau, a 29-year-old star forward and two-time All-Star who is coming off a career-best 115-point season that included a career-high-tying 30 goals and a career-best 85 assists. Huberdeau was the No. 3 draft pick in 2011. Tkachuk was No. 6 in 2016.

• MacKenzie Weegar, a proven 28-year-old top-pairing defenseman who was a career-best plus-40 for the Panthers last season while producing career-highs in both goals (eight) and assists (36).

• Cole Schwindt, a 21-year-old rookie forward and former third-round pick who is three games into his NHL caree.

• One lottery-protected first-round draft pick in the 2025 draft. Calgary sent a conditional fourth-round pick to Florida along with Tkachuk, and that’s it.

The challenge Calgary embraced by trading Tkachuk after he made it clear he would not sign there long-term was to attempt to get a return that made fans optimistic after losing not one but two key players in Tkachuk and previously departed free agent Johnny Gaudreau. Mission accomplished. Flames general manager Brad Treliving is not getting flamed. He’s getting cheered.

Huberdeau and Weegar were two of Florida’s key players. They will help the Flames immediately. Combined they are set to make less than $10 million next season, leaving cap space for other moves if Calgary wants to get even more aggressive.

Both Huberdeau and Weegar could be free agents after the season. This is not the bad thing for Calgary some have assumed. Calgary can try to extend one, or both of the Canadians. If neither are interested, both could be traded as rentals for more future talent, taking advantage of the high prices deadlines demand.

Schwindt adds cost-controlled depth and perhaps more upside than that as he grows into his game.

And don’t forget that prized draft pick.

Frank Seravalli of The Daily Faceoff, who first reported news of the trade, noted that the Blues and Carolina were two of the other teams that made it deep into trade talks for Tkachuk. That won’t make Blues fans who were hopeful feel much better. It makes me wonder what a Blues trade package that matched Florida’s would have looked like.

The Blues didn’t have a player score more than Vladimir Tarasenko’s 82 points last season. Tarasenko and Pavel Buchnevich were the team’s only 30-plus goal scorers. Tarasenko, many forget, has a no trade clause that would require him to agree to any trade destination. Jordan Kyrou, who many assumed could be a centerpiece of a potential Blues deal for Tkachuk, totaled 75 points last season. That’s 40 fewer points than Huberdeau.

The Blues did have a plus-40 defenseman last season. That would be Justin Faulk (plus-41). Like Tarasenko, he has a no trade clause. Same for Colton Parayko (plus-16).

Don’t forget the prospect and the premier draft pick.

This would not have been a team-building trade for the Blues. It would have been a team-altering trade. You can argue that is what was needed, but it’s not the direction the Blues believe they need to go in. At least not yet. Paying this price would have meant parting ways with some pillars, plural. And that’s without getting too far down the cap-math road of figuring out who would have had to go to make room for the Tkachuk extension.

There’s another thing worth mentioning here. If Tkachuk was determined to end up with the Blues, he could have played out one season without an extension and hit free agency to see if the Blues were waiting for him with a big check. No one should blame him for taking the money in Florida. But I won’t blame the Blues for not blowing up their team to beat the Panthers’ package.

The Panthers are desperate to get past the Lightning and into their first Stanley Cup Final since an unsuccessful outcome there in 1996. The Blues believe some of the players who helped them win it all in 2019 can make some more magic before a big overhaul. While it’s completely fair to question Blues general manager Doug Armstrong for not managing salary cap space in a way that allowed a new deal for now-departed free agent forward David Perron, it feels disingenuous to hammer him for not outlasting the Panthers in a trade race that have some in the hockey world wondering if Florida overpaid. Even if Armstrong wanted to come up with an offer that beat Florida’s, I’m not sure he could have, considering the cap challenges, the no-trade clauses on his books and the priorities Calgary seems to have emphasized. The Flames weren’t looking to rebuild. Clearly, they want to continue to compete.

With Tkachuk off the board and out of reach for many years, reality now awaits the Blues. They are a cap-crunched team with a beast of a foe in Colorado. Hope is not lost, but the daydreaming is over.

The latest STL Blues hockey news, NHL headlines, scores, standings and rosters.