A lot of Leafs fans wanted Matthew Tkachuk, but after seeing what the Panthers gave up, what would it have cost Toronto?

However, when a big name like Matthew Tkachuk hits the trade block, that tends to change things a bit. In Tkachuk's case, he's a fantastic player and a 2nd generation NHLer who happens to be extremely productive and he's got that Tkachuk antagonist thing going for him. He's a competitor. He has so many layers to his game AND he's got the connection to both Mitch Marner, from their time together in London, AND Auston Matthews, from their time together in the USTNDP.

Naturally, Leafs Nation held onto hope that Tkachuk might become a Leaf.. sadly, it just wasn't meant to be and Tkachuk went to Florida for a package that included forward Jonathan Huberdeau, defenseman MacKenzie Weegar, prospect Cole Schwindt and a 1st round pick. That's a hell of a package for a guy who had just gone public and stated that he has no intention of remaining a Flame and would likely become a UFA next summer. But what would a package from the Leafs have looked like, knowing now what we didn't know then - which was that there was a serious bidding war between 3 teams (FLA, STL, CAR)?

We know that the Flames were after a package that gave them at least a top forward, a premium prospect and a 1st round pick. In the end, they likely did get the equivalent of that. Cole Schwindt is not a top prospect on his own, but paired with MacKenzie Weegar, a bona-fide top-4 defenseman in this league, the value likely does equate to that of a high-end prospect.

Since the Leafs didn't really have any players that fit the same mold (high-end talent with just one year left), it's likely that they'd have had to deal players with multiple years remaining on their deals, which likely would have increased their value in the trade. So in this case, where Huberdeau at 1 year, as a pending UFA came into play, a younger William Nylander with multiple years remaining might have sufficed. Sure, he's not a 115-point player, but Nylander was an 80-point player last season and is a full 3 years younger than Huberdeau. It's worth noting that Nylander was also born in Calgary.

This is where it gets dicey for the Leafs. The closest thing to MacKenzie Weegar that the Leafs have, outside of Morgan Rielly, is probably T.J. Brodie. Not in the sense that they're both 40-point defensemen, but more that they'd fill that same role of a top-4 defender who can eat a ton of big minutes and in all situations. Brodie also has an additional year of term on his deal over Weegar. Brodie, a former Flame, left via free agency before new head coach Darryl Sutter arrived, so the Flames may have had an interest in bringing him back, specifically because the organization already knows him so well. It's worth noting that Jake Muzzin might have been the better fit, but I don't know if he's waiving his NMC for Calgary, even though he does have a familiarity with his former LA Kings coach (Sutter).

In that case, since Brodie doesn't quite measure up to Weegar value-wise (they might even very well be closer than we expect), the prospect that the Leafs would have had to include may have been much higher than young center Cole Schwindt, who is more of a B prospect. As a result, we may have seen Nick Robertson, Matthew Knies, Topi Niemela or newly drafted Fraser Minten (if the Flames insisted on a center prospect) headed to Calgary in the deal. Cap it off with a 1st round pick (also 2025, lottery protect, as was the Panthers' pick) and the deal looks something like this:

TOR sends: William Nylander, T.J. Brodie, Nick Robertson, 1st in 2025 (lottery protected)

CGY sends: Matthew Tkachuk

Given the money in, money out switch, the Leafs would have freed up enough cap space to sign Tkachuk to his same 8-year deal worth $9.5M per season and had $2M left over to re-sign Rasmus Sandin.

Ultimately, if Robertson is as good as we think he's going to be, the value in this deal is definitely pretty close to three 1st round picks + for Tkachuk, but if I'm the Calgary Flames, I still might go after the Huberdeau, Weegar, Schwindt, 1st deal anyway, simply because if you can re-sign one or both of Huberdeau/Weeger long-term, they're better players than Nylander/Brodie. If they can't, they have a bit of control over where they decide to trade Hubie and Weegar and which players or pieces they want to target coming back to them in the deals, whether that be picks, prospects or both.