Marchand trolls Calgary Flames about Bennett and Tkachuk trades after winning Stanley Cup
Former Calgary Flames general manager Brad Treliving can take some solace in the fact that he’s one of the main architects of a back-to-back Stanley Cup champion.
The only problem is that it’s for a team he’s never worked with.
In 2021 and 2022, Treliving’s Flames made a series of deals with the Florida Panthers, sending Sam Bennett and Matthew Tkachuk about as far away as possible. Fast forward a few years, and the pair are two-time Stanley Cup champions.
And one person who won’t let Treliving (and the rest of the Flames) forget those trades is one Brad Marchand, suddenly a two-time Stanley Cup champion himself after a shocking trade from the Boston Bruins earlier this year.
At a team dinner that eventually turned into what looked like an epic night out at the club, Marchand took to Instagram to troll, well, about half the teams in the NHL.
On his stories, the 37-year-old Marchand began thanking various teams around the league directly for giving up on the players who helped the Panthers defeat the Oilers and win the Stanley Cup.
Brad Marchand is on a hilarious tear right now on his Instagram thanking the former teams of current Panthers š pic.twitter.com/TtvQPmJZ1n
— Jameson Olive (@JamesonCoop) June 20, 2025
For the Flames, that included three direct tags with pictures of Bennett and Tkachuk, as well as A.J. Greer, who signed in Florida after spending the 2023-24 season with the Flames.
Brad Marchand is currently using his IG to thank rival NHL teams for the players they allowed to join the Florida Panthers. The championship celebrations roll on. š pic.twitter.com/miyX0H45ln
— Chris Johnston (@reporterchris) June 20, 2025
The Tkachuk trade ended up as a solid return for the Flames on the surface, landing Jonathan Huberdeau and top defenceman Mackenzie Weegar. Particularly given that the trade request was initiated by Tkachuk, Calgary landed two players with strong NHL resumes.
But Huberdeau’s high-profile struggles in his first few years in Calgary ā and the fact that Tkachuk and the Panthers have been in three straight Stanley Cup Finals, while the Flames have missed the playoffs three years in a row ā make it hard to argue that they’re the true winners of the deal.
The Bennett return isn’t looking all that hot either.
The only current NHL player the Flames got out of the deal was Emil Heineman, who was later packaged in a multiplayer deal that was centred around getting Tyler Toffoli from Montreal.
While we’ll never know if the Flames would have acted differently in an alternate timeline, perhaps they’d have chosen a different destination for Bennett and Tkachuk if they’d known they’d team up with an all-time troll in Marchand one day.