Matthew Tkachuk almost moved to different Eastern contender as trade failed at last minute!

Matthew Tkachuk is the newest member of the Florida Panthers, though the monster trade that sent him there almost took place with another Eastern conference contender.

Late on Friday night, the Calgary Flames traded Tkachuk a conditional fourth-round pick in 2025 to the Panthers, in return for star forward Jonathan Huberdeau, defenseman MacKenzie Weegar, prospect Cole Schwindt and a conditional first-round pick in 2025. Tkachuk then immediately signed an eight-year deal worth $9.5 million per season in Florida.

However, Frank Seravalli of Daily Face-off has revealed that the Carolina Hurricanes were on Tkachuk’s list of teams that he would have been willing to sign an 8-year deal with and that the Canes themselves were pushing hard to land the star forward.

It however became obvious that Carolina had neither the assets nor the cap space to make this work in the long run.

The Hurricanes will be a team to watch this upcoming season after they added the prime-time goal-scorer they needed in a trade for Max Pacioretty and upgraded on Tony DeAngelo in another move for Brent Burns.

They might have been unbeatable with the addition of Tkachuk, though they might have lost too much in the return price to Calgary. As you saw what the Panthers had to send back, this was a monster trade that had Carolina drop out at the last second.