For the second time since 2022, the Florida Panthers have made an enormous splash on the trade market by acquiring a member of the Tkachuk family. This time, the Panthers have landed Brady Tkachuk from the Ottawa Senators in exchange for a slew of premium draft picks, according to Sportsnet and ESPN.
In exchange for Tkachuk, the Senators received two 2026 first-round picks (No. 9 and No. 25), a 2027 first-round pick and a 2030 second-round pick. Just hours before swinging this deal for Tkachuk, Florida acquired the No. 25 overall pick in the 2026 NHL Draft from the Seattle Kraken in a deal for winger Mackie Samoskevich.
Brady will be reunited with brother Matthew just months after the pair helped Team USA end its 46-year gold-medal drought, and that duo will try to help the Panthers rebound from a disappointing 2025-26 season that was derailed by countless injuries. In a way, that step back may have been a blessing in disguise for Florida because it resulted in the No. 9 overall pick, which was probably enough to push this deal across the line.
Like older brother Matthew, Brady was a top-10 draft pick, going to the Senators at No. 4 overall in 2018. Since making his debut that season, Tkachuk has established himself as one of the better power forwards in the NHL. In 572 career games, Tkachuk has 213 goals, 250 assists and 463 points.
Tkachuk still has two years left on his current contract at $8.2 million per season, and that is a great value for the Panthers considering how quickly the salary cap is rising. Florida’s top six is one of the deepest groups in the league now — if it wasn’t already — and the Tkachuk brothers on a line with Sam Bennett at center would be a nuisance for any defensive pairing in the league.
The Panthers still need to sort out their goaltending situation, but once again, general manager Bill Zito has moved aggressively to upgrade his roster on the trade market.
Let’s take a deeper look at how both sides fared in this deal.
The trade
- Panthers receive: F Brady Tkachuk
- Senators receive: 2026 No. 9 overall pick, 2026 No. 25 overall pick; 2029 first-round pick, 2030 second-round pick
Florida Panthers
Every NHL fan should hope to have a general manager like Bill Zito. His track record isn’t perfect, but there’s no question that Zito is going to do whatever is necessary in order to build a Stanley Cup contender, even if that means making some tough decisions.
In this case, I’m not sure the decision was all that tough. In a matter of hours, Zito managed to upgrade from Samoskevich to Tkachuk at the winger position without touching another player on the roster. In a vacuum, that’s a nice piece of work, even if the acquisition cost for Tkachuk would make most other general managers blush.
The simple truth is that the Panthers are the prototypical “win-now” team. Every key player is in his prime, and those draft picks won’t do Florida any good over the next two or three seasons. Plus, and let’s face it, putting the Tkachuk brothers together will make life easier on the marketing and ticket sales teams.
But what about the fit on the ice? Brady, like Matthew in 2022, should enjoy a smooth transition to life on the Panthers.
Even in a 2025-26 season hampered by injuries, Tkachuk still managed to be an incredibly effective player at both ends of the ice. He tallied 22 goals and 37 assists in 60 games played, and he was a menace defensively.
According to Natural Stat Trick, the Senators surrendered just 2.26 xGA/60 with Tkachuk on the ice at five-on-five and that mark was tied for 59th among players with at least 250 minutes of ice-time. His overall expected goals share in those situations was 60.5%, the second-best mark on the team.
The good news for Florida is that Tkachuk’s ceiling is even higher. He tallied 83 and 74 points, respectively, in back-to-back seasons from 2022-24. Pulling back for a larger sample size of the last three seasons, he’s posted a 56.7% expected goals share at five-on-five.
Tkachuk is the type of player Paul Maurice loves to have in his lineup, especially in the postseason, and now the Panthers coach has two of them at his disposal. Yes, the acquisition cost was very high, but Florida has another two-way star capable of helping the team take full advantage of its championship window. Grade — A
Ottawa Senators
If Tkachuk really had no interest in staying with the Senators long-term, it’s easy to understand why general manager Steve Staios felt compelled to make this move. It does feel a bit rushed considering Tkachuk has two more years left on his contract, but perhaps Staios felt constant questions about his star player’s future would be a distraction in 2026-27.
Regardless of why Staios made the move now, he could’ve done much worse. When star players with trade protection want out, we’ve seen teams get what amount to scraps in a trade because they lack leverage. In this instance, Staios got a nice haul of draft picks in exchange for Tkachuk, and he can now use those to fill the void in Ottawa’s lineup.
The issue for the Senators, however, is that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. All those draft picks could be flipped for a great player — maybe even one as great as Brady Tkachuk. If Staios can pull off a deal for someone like Jason Robertson, another uber-talented American winger, then he can salvage this situation.
If he can’t, the Sens will be poised for a step back after a few years of progress. Ottawa just emerged from a rebuilding period in 2024, and Tkachuk was supposed to be a key member of the team’s core for many years. Ottawa’s next move could determine the fate of the franchise for the foreseeable future.
The Senators did well to squeeze some quality draft capital out of the Panthers, but they just got out of the rebuilding business. Ottawa should be adding quality players, not sending one to the other end of North America. The grade should really stand as “incomplete” until we see what the Senators do with their newly-acquired picks, but for now it’s going to sting. Grade — C-
