[SuperMatt18]

And in the end it's actually all kind of irrelevant.

The Flames didn't make the decision and say "We will be better with Huberdeau, let's trade Tkachuk for him". Tkachuk was the one that decided he wanted to move on, it wasn't the Flames evaluating that he wasn't a good player, it was the player turning down more money to play in the Flames organization because he wanted to be in Florida."

And Florida paid a big price with Huberdeau, Weegar, Schwindt, and a 1st. Based on that package you would expect Tkachuk to be the best player in the trade by far, and he was the youngest of the NHLers in the deal.

And what is interesting is that it sounds more and more like Florida really was the only spot he wanted to be, and I do wonder how long he was thinking that considering his parents had already started building a house in the area months earlier.

After his play in round 1 Blues fans were actually complaining on twitter that the Blues didn't move heaven and earth to bring the hometown boy home, and Andy Strickland (who seems to have insight into the Tkachuk family a lot) said it wasn't really the Blues that didn't push their cards all in but that in the end it was Tkachuk that controlled where he wanted to go and that Florida was really the only choice.