Panthers’ trade hit ‘deeper than hockey’ for Ekblad. Then he got a text from Tkachuk
Aaron Ekblad’s first reaction to the Florida Panthers’ July blockbuster trade was the same one most fans had across the NHL.
“Extremely surprised,” the star defenseman said after arriving in Toronto for the annual BioSteel NHL Camp, “to say the least.”
Although MacKenzie Weegar’s future with the franchise was always clouded in uncertainty, Jonathan Huberdeau was, most figured, supposed to be a Panther for life, as the owner of more franchise records than anyone else and arguably Florida’s best player in the Presidents’ Trophy-winning 2021-22 NHL season.
From there, Ekblad thought not about hockey, though. He thought about dinners on the road, and downtime before and after practice at the Florida Panthers IceDen. He thought about what life — not game days — would be like without those two familiar stars around.
Ekblad, after all, has played his entire career with Huberdeau — they were top-five picks three years apart — and spent most of the last two seasons with Weegar on Florida’s top defensive pairing.
“It hits a lot deeper than hockey,” said Ekblad, 26. “I’ve lost two of my absolute best friends in the world. ... Obviously, it’s going to be weird not having them on the ice, but I already miss them tenfold off the ice.”
A little while later, there was a text from All-Star right wing Matthew Tkachuk — the Panthers’ new addition from the blockbuster trade — and then, in a flash, it was hard not to be excited about the future.
“One of the first texts,” Ekblad said, “he says to me, ‘We’re going to win multiple Cups in Florida.’”
It’s the natural dichotomy of a massive, franchise-altering trade like this one. Huberdeau and Weegar were local icons — part of the foundation of the best multi-year run in Florida history — and it can be hard to part with players like those, even if the return is, on paper, superior.
Of course, the latter part is still open for some debate: The Panthers did get the best player in the trade, but it cost them two stars — albeit ones entering the final seasons of their deals — to get him.
At the same time, it was a gamble Florida felt was necessary to make after getting swept out of the second round of the 2022 Stanley Cup playoffs by the rival Tampa Bay Lightning. Although Huberdeau and Tkachuk produced at similar levels last year, Ekblad’s description of Tkachuk as a player hardly mirrors the typical praise for Huberdeau.
“There’s a class of player in this league that you look at and you say, I never, ever want to play against them. He’s one of them,” Ekblad said. “He’s 100 percent every shift, every game. ... You’ve got to put in some considerable effort to be a pain in the [expletive] and that’s what he does, and that’s what makes him such a valuable player. He can shoot, he can score, he can pass and he can piss you off, get you off your game and I think that’s an extremely valuable player to have.”
It also matches the description of what Bill Zito has been looking for since the moment he got to Sunrise in 2020.
The general manager’s first move with the Panthers was to trade for right wing Patric Hornqvist, who has a reputation for feistiness, and then he signed defenseman Radko Gudas later in the offseason. After a first-round exit from the 2021 Stanley Cup playoffs, Zito traded a future first-round pick for defenseman Ben Chiarot, now with the Detroit Red Wings, because he was desperate for another infusion of physicality.
Tkachuk might be the closest thing there is to a superstar who plays with an edge, so Zito went out and got him, no matter the cost.
“We got a fantastic player back. You never know what the future could’ve held, in any case, but we’re happy where we’re at,” Ekblad said. “He really wants to get going and you can see that he’s motivated, and happy to be in Florida and has a lot of passion.”
