Matthew Tkachuk on After Hours: Calgary is ‘my second home’
By Mike Gould
2 years agoCalgary Flames forward @Matthew Tkachuk was a guest on Hockey Night in Canada’s “After Hours” segment following his team’s 4–2 defeat at the hands of the Winnipeg Jets on Saturday night.
CBC hosts Scott Oake and Cassie Campbell-Pascall touched on a wide variety of topics with the 23-year-old winger, who scored Calgary’s first goal in the game against Winnipeg.
One such topic included Tkachuk’s contract status. 2021–22 is the final season of the three-year deal Tkachuk signed with the Flames back in 2019; as a pending restricted free agent, Tkachuk is currently able to sign an extension with the Flames before his current contract expires on July 1, 2022.
To keep his RFA rights, the Flames will need to tender Tkachuk a one-year qualifying offer worth $9 million (provided they don’t sign him to a multi-year extension before the QO deadline next June). If Tkachuk were to accept that one-year contract, he would become a pending unrestricted free agent eligible to hit the open market (if unsigned) on July 1, 2023.
Here’s the video, as posted to Twitter by Taranjot Vining, of Oake’s question to Tkachuk about his contract status and his satisfaction with his situation in Calgary (transcript below the Twitter embed):
OAKE: Brady [Tkachuk] has that long-term deal in Ottawa. You signed a bridge deal here in Calgary and it’s up at the end of this season, so you know we have to ask you about your plans and I’ll keep it to one simple question. You touched on this earlier but the question is: Do you want to stay in Calgary?TKACHUK: Well, I absolutely love it here. It’s been — it’s home for me, my second home since I’ve been, for the last, what, six, I don’t know, I don’t even know what year it is now, but I’ve been here forever and have basically grown up here. I came here as an 18-year-old kid and I’ve met so many unbelievable people and been involved with so many people, not hockey-related, around the community and love the lifestyle here, and have been very, very, very happy. This year has been probably the happiest I’ve been here, with the team and the guys and back to normal. I’ve got a smile on my face every single day I come to the rink and that’s when you know how special a place this is and everyone that comes and visits me says the same thing, they know how happy I am. First, I haven’t been actually asked about that contract, we haven’t talked about it at all, I think my contract year a couple of seasons ago, we didn’t talk and decided not to talk until after the season because, to me, I just want to focus on the team and we’ve got something good going right now and I don’t want anything to get in the way of that. I just want to play and we can deal with that stuff at the end of the season.
Tkachuk is in his seventh season with the Flames after being drafted sixth overall by the club in 2016. He ranks third on the team with 19 points (10 goals, nine assists) in 21 games this year.
The Flames will return to action when they host the Pittsburgh Penguins at the Scotiabank Saddledome on Nov. 29.
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