SUNRISE, Fla. — As the rest of their teams headed back to the dressing room following pregame warmups Saturday, Aleksander Barkov, Jonathan Huberdeau and MacKenzie Weegar remained on the ice.
The three were all teammates on the Florida Panthers for six seasons — Huberdeau and Barkov for nine — before the blockbuster trade of the offseason sent Huberdeau and Weegar to the Calgary Flames in exchange for All-Star winger Matthew Tkachuk.
Weegar and Huberdeau made their return to Sunrise and soaked in the final moments before focusing on the game at hand. Barkov and Huberdeau briefly chatted just outside their respective benches. Huberdeau and Weegar shot pucks at an empty net as the crowd at FLA Live Arena gave the duo an ovation. Barkov shot at a net on the other end of the ice before all three retreated and joined their teams.
The final moment of closure.
“At the end of the day, when the game is all done, it is kind of the end of the chapter,” Weegar said ahead of the game. “That is the most emotional part about it, but at the same time, we are ready to move on.”
Huberdeau added: ”This was a great chapter of my life. I was here for 10 years and have great memories. We had ups-and-downs and that was cool. But trades happen and it is a business. It is time to turn the page.”
As for the game itself, Tkachuk scored the game-tying goal for Florida in the third period to send the game to overtime before Calgary won 5-4 via shootout. Huberdeau and Rasmus Andersson scored in the shootout for Calgary. Anton Lundell scored in the shootout for Florida, which tied the game on three separate occasions in regulation after falling behind by deficits of 2-0, 3-2 and 4-3.
While Saturday could have understandably been an emotional day for Huberdeau and Weegar, Tkachuk viewed it more or less as just another game.
That’s understandable, considering it was the winger who requested the trade from Calgary that set off a wild week of negotiations between the Panthers and Flames that brought the winger to South Florida.
Tkachuk leads the Panthers with 24 points, including a team-high 17 assists along with seven goals. His goal with 6:14 left in regulation, tipping in a Sam Bennett shot, tied the game at 4-4. He also had the primary assist on Sam Reinhart’s power-play goal midway through the second period that tied the game 2-2.
Saturday was Tkachuk’s eighth multi-point game of the season for Florida.
“I mean, I have to move on,” Tkachuk said. “I’ve got great memories there, but it’d be unfair to my teammates here, to the fans and this organization that put a lot into this trade, into getting me, and it’d be unfair for me not to close that book yet.”
The two former Panthers mainstays, meanwhile, took a little longer to adjust. That’s understandable, considering they weren’t necessarily expecting the move to happen until it did.
Huberdeau, alongside Barkov, was one of Florida’s franchise players. He is the Panthers’ all-time leader in assists (415) and points (613) — records Barkov will likely overtake (he’s at 344 assists and 568 points) — and was a staple in their lineup for more than a decade after being selected with the No. 3 overall pick of the 2011 NHL entry level draft.
“It was tough,” said Huberdeau, who has just eight points (two goals, six assists) in 14 games with Calgary. “When you get that call, you don’t expect it. When the GM is calling you late at night, I knew it was not an extension. It was part of the business and that’s what it is. I was emotional when I got the news but coming back here is kind of closing everything.”
The feeling was the same for Weegar, who the Panthers selected in the seventh round of the 2013 NHL draft and emerged over the past two seasons as one of the team’s top defensemen.
“My time here was special,” Weegar said. “It made me a man. I was just a little kid who was a seventh-rounder and now here I am. I don’t even know how to put it into words because there are so many emotions going through my head.”
That focal point now becomes what happens next for both teams. When the trade became official on July 22, the emphasis was on how those moves would impact both teams in the immediate.
Those results from a team perspective haven’t been there, with both hovering around the playoff line through the first month-plus of the season. Florida is 9-7-2. Calgary is 8-7-2.
Panthers coach Paul Maurice, who has admitted Florida would be dealing with a lot of transitioning this season, on Friday referred to the trade in the grand scheme as “an eye to the future.” That can be said for both teams. Right after the trade was executed, Florida signed an eight-year, $76 million contract. Huberdeau and Weegar both received extensions with Calgary as well — Huberdeau for eight years and $84 million, Weegar for eight years and $50 million.
“It worked out exceptionally well for both teams,” Maurice said. “They got two really strong players in their lineup. We got a 24-year-old [in Tkachuk] who’s just coming into his prime and is going to play like that for 10 years.”
