SUNRISE, Fla. – Seth Jones wanted to join a contender. He wound up going to the champs.
The defending Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers acquired Jones in a trade with the Chicago Blackhawks on Saturday night, landing him and a 2026 fourth-round pick from for goaltender Spencer Knight and a conditional first-round pick in next year’s draft.
The Blackhawks also are retaining 26% of Jones’ salary, which works out to about $2.5 million annually. Florida next plays on Monday, at home against the Tampa Bay Lightning.
It is another huge acquisition for Florida, which already has key players like Aleksander Barkov, Matthew Tkachuk, Sam Reinhart, Anton Lundell, Carter Verhaeghe and Gustav Forsling locked up for at least three more seasons after this — and now lands a top-line defenseman in Jones, who is under contract through 2030.
“Seth is an elite veteran defenseman and a proven leader in our league,” said Bill Zito, the general manager and president of hockey operations for the Panthers. “He has been one of the most consistent players of the past decade serving as a reliable workhorse on both sides of the puck, and he will help our club continue to compete at the highest level.”
The 30-year-old Jones was the No. 4 overall pick by Nashville in the 2013 entry draft, taken two spots after Florida chose Barkov — its current captain — that year. Jones was the top-ranked player on the NHL Central Scouting list of North American players in that draft, and there was plenty of speculation that the Panthers would use the No. 2 pick that year to get him.
They took Barkov instead. More than 11 years later, Jones and Barkov are now teammates.
“I have a competitive nature and I get that from my parents,” Jones said on that night in 2013. “Yeah, you definitely want to prove them wrong and you definitely want to show them why they should have picked you.”
Jones went right to the NHL after the draft — starting his career with the Predators, then spending six seasons in Columbus and the last four seasons in Chicago.
The Blackhawks never made the playoffs in Jones’ tenure there and aren’t in postseason contention this year, which led to him asking for a trade about a week and a half ago.
“I’ve been here the last four years, through probably the darkest times the Blackhawks have seen in a while,” Jones said last month. “I think things are moving up. They are moving forward. But I think my timeline might be different than … the Blackhawks.”
Blackhawks general manager Kyle Davidson told Chicago Sports Network, the team’s broadcast partner, on Saturday night that Jones’ comments resonated and evidently helped spark getting the deal done.
“I felt a little more urgency, I would say, once that became public,” Davidson said.
In short, Jones wanted to join a winner — and waived his no-trade clause to move to Florida. For his career, Jones has 97 goals and 335 assists in 839 games. He hasn’t appeared in a postseason game since the bubble season in 2020.
Jones’ father, Popeye Jones, played in the NBA for 11 seasons.
“No trade’s easy, but I think we landed in a great spot for the organization,” Davidson said.
Knight — the No. 13 overall pick in the 2019 draft out of Boston College — has been part of the Panthers for five seasons, going 44-25-7 with a 2.76 goals-against average and a .906 save percentage. He is 12-8-1 this season as Sergei Bobrovsky’s backup with the Panthers.
“I think we’re getting a really exciting young talent, very technically sound, a winner at all levels,” Davidson said. “We loved him in the draft and he’s had great success in every place he’s been.”
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