Barkov has never hit 100, not even when he was playing with Huberdeau.
It's hard to project until we see chemistry develop; but one could have said the same for Elias Lindholm before last year.
Question is does Tkachuk play LW or RW in Florida? If so, and on Barkov's line (both likely assumptions) then who is the RW? Duclair when he returns from injury? Reinhart?
Is that line tasked with going H2H against top lines or put into advantageous offensive situations?
Signing Tkachuk certainly rewrites the Panthers powerplay strategy; which is a good thing for them.
How was he able to sign a 8 year contract? I thought the window to sign for max term was closed last week. Unless that window only applied to UFA status and not RFAs.
That’s exactly it. The window only applied to UFAs. Once a player becomes a UFA, he is no longer considered to have any connection with his team, and the team has no more rights to sign him than any other team in the league. With a RFA, the team still owns his signing rights and can still sign him for 8 years.
That being said, I read somewhere that the reason this is listed as a Calgary signing is that if they had traded his rights before he signed, Florida wouldn’t be able to sign him for 8 years. That doesn’t make sense to me. If Calgary trades his signing rights to Florida, wouldn’t that give Florida all the same rights that Calgary had, including the right to sign him for 8 years?