NHL grades: Tkachuk trade sets Senators back, adds to Panthers’ already-strong arsenal
The trade
Florida Panthers get: Brady Tkachuk
Ottawa Senators get: No. 9 and No. 25 in the 2026 NHL Draft, a first-round pick in 2029 (top-10 protected) and a second-round pick in 2027
Shayna Goldman: For weeks, rumors have been swirling around Team USA players. Looks like Brady Tkachuk’s plans are the first to make it out of the group chat.
To contenders like the Panthers, draft picks are just trade assets; most players selected with those picks won’t be difference-makers while this team is in its playoff window. Considering what management has already invested in this window and the fact that the team is coming off a lost year, it makes sense that Florida would go even further in with a trade of this magnitude.
In Tkachuk, the Panthers add a winger who drives scoring chances and is coming off a season in which he scored at the highest pace of his career. It may seem like a surplus of riches, but building a deeper team matters a lot here. The Atlantic Division is only getting more competitive (even if the Senators are taking a step back with this deal), and Florida’s core isn’t getting any younger. As great of a player as Brad Marchand is still (and he is!), the reality is that he is 38 years old. Carter Verhaeghe has taken a step back over the past couple of seasons, too. This Tkachuk deal helps punch up the top-nine with another star-caliber add.
It just comes at a really high price. Even if Tkachuk extends in two years and even if it’s at a discount, it’s a high price for someone who never proved he could be a franchise forward in Ottawa. The good news is, he doesn’t have to be that in Florida. He slides into a No. 3 or No. 4 role behind his brother and Aleksander Barkov, and will be a key contributor instead of The Guy. His footspeed is one other potential pitfall, as well as the fact that the team is low on assets, with more work to do, like figuring out the goaltending situation.
This one obviously stings for the Senators, who climbed their way back into the playoff circle, only to lose one of their best players. There are two ways to look at the return. The No. 9 pick is extremely valuable and the best way for Ottawa to find its next franchise player. There’s delayed gratification in waiting for another first in 2029, but it should be worth it. The Panthers could be on the downswing by then, so that could be a higher pick than it would be in the next couple of years.
This could be the Senators’ best chance to build a stronger window of contention, since this one was always going to be flawed by the fact that their No. 1 forward really wasn’t high-caliber enough to be a franchise cornerstone. The big looming question of whether their captain wanted to be a part of that next wave in Ottawa didn’t help, either.
The flip side, though, is that a pick-filled return is filled with uncertainty. Drafting and developing players is the best way to bring in stars, but it’s a long process with a lot of unknowns. So adding some difference-making NHL-caliber talent would have gone a long way to softening the blow of this trade. The Senators have more trade assets to work with now, but it’s going to take a lot of creativity to keep everything afloat after rebuilding for so long to even get to this point.
Panthers grade: B+
Senators grade: C+
Mark Lazerus: The Brady doth protest too much, methinks.
Maybe we should have known when Brady Tkachuk spoke in the past tense after Ottawa’s first-round loss to the Carolina Hurricanes, saying, “I have been fully committed to this team, to this city.” (Emphasis mine.) After repeatedly batting away speculation that he wanted out of Ottawa, Tkachuk got out of Ottawa. And let’s be clear, this trade doesn’t happen if Tkachuk doesn’t want it to happen. The erstwhile Senators captain has two full years left on his contract and a full no-movement clause, so general manager Steve Staios doesn’t make this trade unless he has no other choice.
You have to feel for Ottawa fans, who waited through seven straight seasons without a playoff appearance and were just beginning to emerge as a threat in the Eastern Conference, only to suddenly find themselves back in rebuild hell, hoping to hit on a few lottery tickets. Don’t misunderstand — a top-10 pick and two more first-rounders is, in theory, a solid haul for Ottawa, especially given how its hands were tied. The No. 9 pick should land Ottawa a real player on a relatively expedient timeline. But the No. 25 pick in this week’s draft (obtained earlier in the day by trading Mackie Samoskevich to Seattle) will be a dart throw with years of development ahead of him, and the 2029 first-round pick is currently 14 or 15 years old. This is a massive, massive step back for the Senators. To not get a single current NHL player for one of your two best players when you’re supposed to be past the rebuild stage is a tough pill to swallow.
That it’s Florida — again — is almost comical at this point. Like Claude Giroux, Seth Jones and Brad Marchand before him, Tkachuk wanted Florida and got Florida. You have to wonder at some point if the NHL will be down to two teams, one in Florida and one in Las Vegas. The appeal, though, is understandable — the Panthers have an insatiable win-now mentality, warm weather, a player-friendly tax situation and, of course, Tkachuk’s brother, Matthew. The brothers won a gold medal together in Milan, host a podcast together and now can chase the Stanley Cup together. Again, we should have known.
On paper, it’s a steep price to pay for Florida, especially given how invisible Tkachuk was during that first-round sweep at the hands of the eventual champions. Tkachuk has only broken 80 points once in his career and is coming off back-to-back seasons in the 50s. He’s simply not a top-line superstar winger in the NHL. But in Florida, he won’t have to be. The Panthers already have Barkov, Sam Reinhart, Matthew Tkachuk, Carter Verhaeghe, Sam Bennett, Anton Lundell and Marchand. Brady will slip right into that top six — another interchangeable part who’s a huge pain to play against, another physical presence in front of the net, another power-play weapon. All without the burden he carried in Ottawa with Tim Stützle the only other offensive star.
He might be a tad overrated because of his last name and big personality, but he’ll thrive in Florida. Everyone seems to. No, Brady Tkachuk is not worth three first-round picks and a second. Not in the abstract. But he is to the Panthers.
After all, ask the New York Knicks and Mikal Bridges about the picks. Florida doesn’t care about picks. For GM Bill Zito, the only reason to have picks is to trade them away for win-now pieces. The No. 9 pick could become a terrific NHL player, but not on Florida’s timeline. To Florida, two or three years from now might as well be 20 or 30 years from now. So the rich get richer, and the beat goes on, as the Panthers’ one-year stumble could add years to their championship window.
Panthers grade: A-
Senators grade: C
Harman Dayal: You just knew that the Florida Panthers had a big swing coming when they flipped Samoskevich to the Seattle Kraken for extra picks, which armed them with multiple first-round selections this year and two second-rounders in each of 2026 and 2027. What we didn’t know was who specifically they were zeroing in on: Connor Hellebuyck? Dylan Larkin?
It turns out the Panthers had a secret door No. 3 with Tkachuk behind it, four summers after they acquired his brother Matthew.
Brady is an old-school throwback, one of the game’s few remaining fierce power forwards. He’s scored 133 goals and 271 points in 295 games over the last four years, which translates to a 37-goal, 75-point pace over 82 games. In that same timeframe, he ranks seventh among all NHL forwards in hits.
Acquiring Tkachuk undoubtedly gives Florida the scariest forward core in the NHL. It’s an embarrassment of riches with Barkov returning, both Tkachuk brothers, Reinhart, Bennett, Marchand, Carter Verhaeghe, Anton Lundell and Eetu Luostarinen. This group blends superstar skill, elite two-way IQ and a ferocious, physical style of play. Florida was already one of the nastiest, most physically intimidating teams to play against in the playoffs. Now, imagine trying to contend with the shenanigans of the two Tkachuk brothers, Bennett and Marchand, to go along with the size they have on the back end. Brady is a perfect fit for the Panthers’ aggressive, rambunctious style of play.
Yes, Zito cashed in a lot of assets to make this deal, and adding Brady was more of a luxury than a necessity, but two of the three first-round picks involved are going to be late selections anyway.
It is fair to have some concerns about what the Panthers will do in net after blowing most of their assets and cap space on Tkachuk rather than a goaltender. They don’t have a single NHL netminder signed for next season, and may need to shed a bit of salary (perhaps Evan Rodrigues) to get that shopping done.
However, we’re seeing a trend in which elite teams can achieve playoff success with cheap, unproven netminders. Carolina just won a Cup with Brandon Bussi (ironically a waiver claim from Florida) and Frederik Andersen. Vegas reached the Stanley Cup Final with Carter Hart. Montreal made the Eastern Conference final with Jakub Dobeš. Colorado got to the Western Conference final with Scott Wedgewood. None of those starters had a cap hit greater than $2.75 million this past season.
I agree with Florida’s calculated risk to spend its inventory of assets and cap room on Tkachuk rather than a goaltender because it’s not as if Hellebuyck, who’s 33 and has an underwhelming playoff track record, is a sure thing either.
For Ottawa, this is obviously a gut punch. The Senators were already lacking a top-six winger and are now down another top-line winger. It’s not entirely surprising they were forced to trade Brady because it was an open secret in the hockey world that he’d probably ask out this summer, but it still hurts.
The return is full of draft picks rather than premium, NHL-ready pieces, which would have been preferable, but that’s to be expected considering the power Brady held with his no-movement clause. The Sens didn’t have much leverage here, and while the return is a notch lower than the package the Canucks got for Quinn Hughes, which essentially included four first-round quality assets, Hughes is also a higher-tier player than Brady entirely. Overall, Staios made the most of a tough situation. And at least the constant drama and speculation about Brady’s future will be over.
The most interesting question is where Ottawa will go from here: Do they attempt a quick on-the-fly retool or try to immediately flip these surplus picks for win-now pieces?
Panthers grade: A-
Senators grade: B-