Florida is on a heater of all heaters for lots of reasons right now, but Tkachuk is on a level like nothing I’ve ever seen. Delivered 3 game-ending goals in 4 games to go to the Finals. 19 points and +12 in 15 playoff games. 3 overtime winners.
If memory serves me right, the Islanders were never seriously in on Tkachuk. Likely due to not having / being willing to give up the necessary assets. As a refresher, the trade was:
TO FLORIDAMatthew TkachukConditional 2025 4th round pick
TO CALGARYJonathan HuberdeauMacKenzie WeegarCole SchwindtConditional 2025 1st round pick (conditions were some weird top-10 protections that are too long to explain)
For a fun / miserable hindsight exercise, let’s say Lou was convinced last summer that Tkachuk was going to do for the Islanders what he’s doing for Florida right now and was set on making a deal happen. And that Tkachuk would have been willing to sign the same contract here (without researching deeply, I imagine this would have been feasible with us paying Horvat only a million less a year than Tkachuk). Who are we sending to Calgary circa July 2022 that is a good enough package for them to agree to and get this done, based on the comps of the actual trade?
[From last summer (before the trade), this suggests Beau / Wahlstrom plus some assortment of picks and prospects wouldn’t be enough (I would agree).](https://nypost.com/2022/07/22/islanders-unlikely-to-be-able-to-pull-off-trade-for-matthew-tkachuk/) ~~Maybe Nelson, Mayfield, Raty, and a 1st?~~ G*onna just cross that one off because I completely forgot Huberdeau was coming off a 115 point season and Nelson is obviously not a good comp here.* Weegar is a tough comp because the closest guy to him we have on defense is Dobson, and he’s obviously much younger and would have had better trade value. Nelson, Dobson, Raty and a 1st – maybe Dobson being a better D prospect makes up for us having no 100 point scorers to send back? Or maybe no possibility whatsoever because we just didn’t have the assets to make it happen?
3 comments
Hubedreau was a 100 point player. We dont have those to trade.
You wouldve had to give up barzal 100% plus 3 other assets and some picks
would’ve been like a barzal+pulock trade and it still might not have been enough