George Richards, FHN Publisher
SUNRISE — Sasha Barkov and Aaron Ekblad both woke to the news of yet another trade involving teammates with the Florida Panthers.
When the Panthers announced their blockbuster deal with the Calgary Flames on July 22, the one which sent Jonathan Huberdeau and MacKenzie Weegar west with Matthew Tkachuk coming to South Florida, two of their star players did not find out until hours later.
The news of the trade broke around 11 p.m. on a Friday night in South Florida.
Barkov was in Finland; Ekblad went to bed early at his home in Fort Lauderdale.
“In the summertime, I can’t stay up past 9:30 so I was sleeping,” he recalled. “My wife woke me up the next morning and told me about the trade. I was surprised like everyone was.”
It was a trade which sent shockwaves throughout the hockey world and one that momentarily stunned players on the Panthers.
But for Ekblad and Barkov, it was something they have become well accustomed to.
They are the two longest-tenured members of the Florida Panthers with third place — Sergei Bobrovsky — really not even close.
”We have survived,” Ekblad quipped.
“But change makes sense. A team that is trying to build a winning culture is going to constantly change or you’re just doing the same thing over and over. You have to change if you don’t win. That’s just the business of hockey and a stagnant salary cap certainly doesn’t help anyone. It is all understandable in this situation. In this day and age, teams are never satisfied.”
How much have the Panthers changed in the years since Barkov and Ekblad joined the Panthers?
When Barkov was the second-overall pick of the 2013 NHL Draft, Kevin Dineen was the coach and players such as Brian Campbell, Ed Jovanovski and Scottie Upshall were still a big part of the team.
Ekblad was the top pick in 2014, selected not long after Gerard Gallant was hired as the 13th coach in franchise history.
With Paul Maurice now behind the bench, Barkov has had eight coaches in Florida; Ekblad is on No. 6.
Florida Panthers rookie center Sasha Barkov at training camp in 2013. — Photo @GeorgeRichards
The longest tenured member of the Florida Panthers beside Barkov (10th season) and Ekblad (ninth) is Bobrovsky who signed with the team as a free agent in 2019.
The only other player who was on the Panthers during the 2019-20 season was Eetu Luostarinen, and he did not appear in a game with Florida upon arriving from Carolina at the trade deadline.
That is a whole lot of roster turnover.
As Maurice explains, there is a reason Barkov and Ekblad remain the constant in Sunrise.
”They are really important in handing down the culture year after year,” Maurice said.
“There is a lot of good in these men. As the team has built and grown each year in each iteration, you want to keep all the good with you. Those two guys are such strong drivers in practice and strong drivers in the game, they are good for all of the new guys.
”They are the benchmark: You have one forward and one defenseman and this is how we have to play. There is a standard amount of movement on every NHL team. There are players in and players out. I don’t know if you call this a roller coaster, but there have been a lot of things going on in Florida over their time.
“Now, they have kind of built to having a lot of good pieces in their lineup every night. Those two guys were never not considered to be part of the Florida Panthers because they are elite players who have done all the right things they have needed to do.”
The revolving coaching door in Sunrise has been nothing when compared the parade of teammates both players have had in South Florida.
Back when Barkov and Ekblad were just getting their NHL careers going, they were considered part of a core group of young players which included Nick Bjugstad, Erik Gudbranson and Huberdeau.
Vincent Trocheck, Mike Matheson and MacKenzie Weegar joined that group as the years moved along but they, too, were traded away.
The first big name to go was Gudbranson, traded to Vancouver weeks into the 2016 offseason. Dmitry Kulikov, a veteran player by then but still on the young side, followed and as the years went on, the rest ended up playing somewhere else.
Save, of course, for Barkov and Ekblad.
“You never expect a team to stay together for 20 years,” Barkov said. “There are always going to be changes, some players stay longer with you and you become really good friends with them. But then they get traded. You still stay in touch and everything, but you don’t see them every day anymore.
”That’s a part of the business of playing hockey. We’re trying to win the Stanley Cup and have a lot of success here. Whatever it takes on my part or anyone else like management and players, we’re all trying to make the team better. I am here to do my thing.”
While the list of friends and now former teammates are long, each move had a reason behind it.
A Florida Panthers poster depicting Sasha Barkov, Nick Bjugstad, Jonathan Huberdeau and Erik Gudbranson from the 2013-14 season. — Photo @GeorgeRichards
Barkov and Ekblad, both smart hockey guys, understand the reasoning behind most of the moves — but whether they agree with all of them is another matter.
And a natural one, as well.
“It always sucks when you lose a close friend on a team,” Ekblad said. “It is what it is, and hey, it doesn’t matter. That’s hockey, that’s the business we’re in.
“You make new friends when new guys come in. That is how it has been since I was a little kid. That’s the hockey life, man, we’re one for all and all for one. There’s always a lot of turnover in hockey. And the salary cap is a big reason at this level. It doesn’t take a mathematician to see that.”
The trade of Trocheck at the trade deadline in 2020 was one that shook the close-knit Panthers although time has healed that wound.
Trading away Huberdeau and Weegar, two players close with their teammates, brought similar shock within the team.
”It was something I couldn’t believe right away,” said Barkov, who first met Huberdeau at development camp days after the 2013 draft.
“It was one of those things when you hear something happened, you hear it, but it doesn’t really sink in. Then a couple of days later, it becomes reality. You know things are going to be a little different. Now it has been a few months and we’re over it. It’s over now.
“We’re still close, that’s not going to change. I’m not going to take it easy on him when we’re on the ice and he’s not going to take it easy on me. But we’ll stay in touch because we did have a special relationship and had a lot of fun together.”
Tkachuk reaching out to his now-new teammates almost immediately seemed to smooth some of those waters.
When Barkov sent him a text welcoming him to the team, Tkachuk’s response still brings a smile to Barkov’s face.
“Right away, the first message is ‘F-in right! I’m excited about this’,’’ Barkov recalled. “That’s who he is. He want to win, wants to bring the character he has to this organization. I think he’s done some damage already.’’
Barkov said while you hate playing against Tkachuk because “he gets under your skin and be that guy who pisses you off, then all of a sudden he’s your teammate and you want to be best buddies with him because he is an amazing guy who cares about not only his teammates but those around the team.”
Yes, Tkachuk is an elite player in his own right and it is easy to see what the Panthers are getting as an immediate return.
Tkachuk, by all accounts, has been a tremendous addition to the group with Maurice mentioning how one of the first things he did upon arriving in South Florida was taking all the equipment guys out to a nice dinner.
Those kind of small gestures go a long way when it comes to goodwill among teammates — but so does the style of play Tkachuk possesses.
He is a pain in the backside of opponents but his teammates know he’ll do anything for them. That kind of support is contagious.
“The guy is an absolute stud,’’ Ekblad said. “He is young, strong. Pisses everyone off, can really play this game and is just an awesome guy. You can’t ask for anything more than that.”
Ekblad and Barkov, while missing their friends, only want to win.
They have seen their bubble of longtime teammates shrink year over year, but the results — for the most part — have been worth it in the long term.
Florida Panthers rookie defenseman Aaron Ekblad celebrates his first NHL goal following a game against the Flyers on Nov. 1, 2014. He got his 98th on Saturday against the Buffalo Sabres. — Photo @GeorgeRichards
Last year the Panthers — with Trocheck, Gudbranson and Bjugstad long gone from the team — had the best regular season of any NHL team in years.
While the team won its first playoff series in 26 years, it flamed out in a four-game sweep at the hands of the Tampa Bay Lightning.
When Tkachuk unexpectedly came onto the market, general manager Bill Zito leapt at the opportunity to bring him to South Florida for the longterm.
That move was made to make the Panthers a better postseason team and a better team for years into the future.
We will see if it pays off.
Time will tell.
”We were close as a team in the first year under Bob Boughner when we just missed the playoffs and then year after year we just kept building a culture and getting better,” Ekblad said.
“Last year we won the Presidents’ Trophy and that is not something to rest our laurels on. We don’t expect the Presidents’ Trophy this year; what we expect is to be in the playoffs and to win in the playoffs.
“That’s the team we’re going to be. We don’t need to have the best regular season ever, but at the end of the day, we need to be a playoff contender. The games are completely different and the years I have been there, I have seen the night and day difference between the regular season and the playoffs.”
PANTHERS ON DECK
FLORIDA PANTHERS AT BOSTON BRUINS
- When: Monday, 7 p.m.
- Where: Boston Garden
- TV/Streaming: Bally Sports Florida, ESPN+
- Radio: WQAM 560-AM; WBZT 1230-AM (Palm Beach); WCTH 100.3-FM (Florida Keys); SiriusXM
- Panthers Radio Streaming: SiriusXM 932
- Last season: Boston won 2-1
- All-time regular season series: Boston leads 58-36-6, 6 ties