Flames trade Tkachuk to Panthers for monster haul headlined by Huberdeau

[Digger]

55 minutes ago, dudacek said:

Also going against the grain here: hockey fans often make the mistake of conflating being a dick with being a competitor and that has made Matthew Tkachuk among hockey's more overrated players.

Don't get me wrong, he's a heck of a hockey player, easy 1st-line talent, but I'm pretty sure Matt spells team with an "I".

There's a fine line between being a shift-disturber and an asshat, and Tkachuk is on the wrong side of that line more often than the Hockey establishment would have you believe. He does what he wants, how he wants and when. He's just as likely to pull his team apart as he is to fire them up.

Do you think Matt had anything other than his own best interests in mind when orchestrated his way out of Calgary and into a warm-weather, low-pressure tax-free state as quickly and as profitably as possible?

You think it's a coincidence that this 70-point player turned into a 100-point player during a contract year? Or that he hit those heights playing with one of the league's best-puckhandlers and one of its better 2-way centres?

Eight years is a long time time. I'm betting it's not going to take long for reports of friction to surface in Florida. Of course, it will be spun as Matt ridding the president's trophy winning team of it's "country-club atmosphere."

As I said earlier, he's a heck of a player and I'm sure he will make our lives miserable many times over the next 8 years.

But I wonder when people are going to start asking themselves what has Matt Tkachuk ever won?

 

Both Matthew and Brady have been major pains to their teams (Calgary and Ottawa) during contract negotiations.  I really don't know how they are as teammates.  I liked both during their draft years and would have been happy to have the Sabres draft either of them, but I do agree that they come with some baggage that may affect the team.

[mjd1001]

14 hours ago, dudacek said:

Also going against the grain here: hockey fans often make the mistake of conflating being a dick with being a competitor and that has made Matthew Tkachuk among hockey's more overrated players.

Don't get me wrong, he's a heck of a hockey player, easy 1st-line talent, but I'm pretty sure Matt spells team with an "I".

There's a fine line between being a shift-disturber and an asshat, and Tkachuk is on the wrong side of that line more often than the Hockey establishment would have you believe. He does what he wants, how he wants and when. He's just as likely to pull his team apart as he is to fire them up.

Do you think Matt had anything other than his own best interests in mind when orchestrated his way out of Calgary and into a warm-weather, low-pressure tax-free state as quickly and as profitably as possible?

You think it's a coincidence that this 70-point player turned into a 100-point player during a contract year? Or that he hit those heights playing with one of the league's best-puckhandlers and one of its better 2-way centres?

Eight years is a long time time. I'm betting it's not going to take long for reports of friction to surface in Florida. Of course, it will be spun as Matt ridding the president's trophy winning team of it's "country-club atmosphere."

As I said earlier, he's a heck of a player and I'm sure he will make our lives miserable many times over the next 8 years.

But I wonder when people are going to start asking themselves what has Matt Tkachuk ever won?

 

I agree with a lot of what you said, but to me there is a bigger issue with him.  Just how good is he?

This year he had a great year, 8th in the league in points and 9th in goals.  But that was his CAREER year, the question is, is this year repeatable?  Maybe it is..and if it is, then he is worth the contract from a production point of view.

But the other side of it is...too many times players have that 'career year', and they are paid on it because management and the fanbase take that career year and project it as the baseline, and that often doesn't happen. What has the rest of his career looked like?  Before this past season in goals he was: Tied for 81st, tied for 48th,  tied for 25th, and tied for 68th (didn't look up his rookie year but it wasn't any better than those). Since he has been in the league he is tied for 32nd in goals.  Take out his first few years (just look at his last 3 seasons including this past one where he was great) and he is still only tied for 19th in goals.

So don't get me wrong, those numbers are really good, but I'm not sure if they are $9.5 million dollars good, for a winger, If, IF the issues you brought up in your above post might be true (about him being a 'me' guy before a 'team guy).  He better bring the offense too because from what I have read he is average at best in terms of defensive responsibility, and he gives you basically Zero penalty killing (basically hasn't been used at all in the past few years on the PK)

[dudacek]

Agree @mjd1001.

As usual, I wrote more than I needed to, but what it boils down to is: the hockey world is generally saying treating Tkachuk like he’s a 100-point scorer with grit, when it is more likely he’s a 75-point scorer with maintenance issues.

Down Goes Brown did a piece on the “Shiny New Toy Contract” where a team trades for a big name player and signs him immediately to a huge deal.

Almost universally, recent such deals have turned out bad: Seth Jones, Jeff Skinner, Erik Karlsson, Justin Faulk, Jacob Trouba, Ryan McDonough, Evander Kane, Jordan Staal, Jason Spezza, Corey Schneider, Bobby Ryan…

He says the exceptions were Dougie Hamilton and Ryan O’Reilly, which were more fair than good for the team.

https://theathletic.com/3471039/2022/08/04/nhl-contract-disasters-history-seth-jones/

The article was inspired by the Huberdeau deal and even goes out of its way to say Tkachuk might be an exception.

Im not so sure.