A year and a half ago, Matthew Tkachuk didn’t want to link his hockey destiny with Canada. After that, Calgary gave rise to the loudest trade of 2022 and one of the largest in recent years. Tkachuk went to Florida, and in the opposite direction Jonathan Huberdeau, who had just scored 115 points for the season, and versatile defenseman Mackenzie Weegar went in the opposite direction: many experts sent both players to the Canadian Olympic team. It seemed like the Flames had at least tied the trade and made up for the loss of Johnny Gaudreau.
Florida scored fewer points than Calgary last season, but fell to the playoffs, and there Tkachuk showed all his power, dominating every inch of the court. Huberdeau disappointed absolutely everyone: no one expected Jonathan to immediately score over 100 points in a new place, but 55 points for a player who just signed a contract extension worth $10.5 million is a little sad.
How Tkachuk dominated in the spring:
King of overtime. The son of an American legend survived a sensational trade and is tearing up the NHL
However, Huberdeau’s final season now seems like a joke: “Remember what I said about the black streak? “So he was white.” This season, Jonathan has 15 points in 34 games (that’s a full-season 37-point chart), has the worst utility on the team (-14), and hasn’t scored a single point in December. The change of coach, which was also organized with the aim of shaking up disgruntled team managers, did not help Huberdeau at all, and his new contract has already taken effect and is now clearly the worst in the NHL in terms of price. quality relationship. What happened to the forward?
Huberdeau was Florida’s third overall pick in the 2011 draft and beat out Calder in his first year in the league (even if it was a pretty mediocre rookie career). But for the first time Jonathan reached star level when the Panthers formed the trio of Huberdeau, Alexander Barkov and Jaromir Jagr. The 43-year-old Czech then became the ideal partner and mentor for the team’s two young leaders, whose combined ages were younger than Jaromir. In the 2015/2016 championship, it was this trio that led Florida to a sensational first place in the division.
Jonathan Huberdeau and Alexander Barkov
Photo: Joe Skipper/AP Photo/TASS
“Jagr gave a lot to both of us: he taught us to play with the puck, not to lose it like that and to fight. He liked to repeat that there is only one record,” Barkov said. The trio spent a lot of time not only on the ice, but off it as well, and many expected Jagr’s departure to hurt their productivity. However, Evgeniy Dadonov, who returned to the NHL in the summer of 2017, became an excellent substitute for the Czech. “Huberdeau and Barkov focus mainly on passing. Dadonov is like that too, so we’d like to see more shooting activity from either of them. But they like to work low and get those perfect shots. They do this a lot,” general manager Dale Tallon described the line’s play.
In the 2018/2019 championship, Huberdeau scored 92 points and marched at the same pace in the season interrupted by Covid; one might think that this was a consequence of “pumping” by Barkov. However, in the shortened season, Joel Quenneville decided to change the lines to make the Panthers’ attack more balanced and, with more modest partners, Huberdeau did not diminish his performance. He had his best season with Sam Bennett at center, who was already considered a lost talent before being traded to Florida. In November 2021, TSN pundit Craig Button sent Huberdeau to flank Connor McDavid as part of an imaginary Canada 2022.
However, everything fell apart instantly. Huberdeau was said to have reacted obscenely when he found out he was being traded by the Panthers, and even to Calgary. “I think it was something like, “You changed me, are you ##### serious?!” Well, there, in the context of 115 points last season and so on,” suggested Keith Yandle, Jonathan’s former teammate at Florida. Of course, the newcomer from Calgary gave the press the “ceremonial equipment” necessary in such cases: I will fight, I will give my all, now I have a new chapter. But no one except his inner circle knows how Huberdeau actually perceived such a movement.
Perhaps Zadorov was referring to Huberdeau?
“It’s a shame to play like this!” Pravdorub Zadorov criticizes his members and his club in the media
Huberdeau did not immediately have a relationship with Darryl Sutter. You can guess why: Sutter’s style focuses primarily on shooting and vertical play, and Jonathan is used to playing differently. “Florida” sometimes played recklessly in attack, constantly hitting one of the defenders, and Sutter was more conservative. “There were many factors. The style Sutter played didn’t fit the style I play. We need to create a position for the players where they can play as efficiently as possible, but he didn’t achieve that,” the player complained. Over the summer, Huberdeau hoped the new season would be more fun.
No coach could suddenly explain the 60-point drop, and the new season for Huberdeau did not start better. Ryan Huska showed his discontent a month after the start of the championship: Jonathan remained on the bench in the third period of the match against Nashville. True, Husk is not taking more radical steps (for example, a complete transfer to the reserve), Huberdeau is still stuck on the third line, but there he does not have any success, and this despite the fact that his teammates are showing excellent hockey.
Sportsnet journalists tried to find out the reasons for this. They highlight, first of all, the stylistic difference between Florida and Calgary: the Ogonyki do not have defenders who join the attacks so well. The Canadian team plays more directly and does not look for additional spaces, making fewer cutting passes that would help Huberdeau execute quick counterattacks and take advantage of his skill advantage.
Jonathan Huberdeau
Photo: Alex Gallardo/AP Photo/TASS
However, Jonathan himself has many questions. For example, analysts point out that now he himself does not speed up the game during Calgary’s counterattacks, but at the entrance to the zone he waits for his teammates to pass the pass to the guard man near the blue Huberdeau. Fans criticize Huberdeau for shooting too little on goal and for trying to find a pass even when shooting is the best and most obvious solution. Finally, Huberdeau himself points out that he can read the game, but if the game does not go according to his plan, he starts playing “like garbage”, and this also affects.
But there are also players in Calgary with a pleasant evolution:
“SharanGOLovich!” The Belarusian striker is a spark in a boring Canadian club
However, such a steep drop cannot be explained simply by purely hockey reasons. Huberdeau is a great clean ice player, but even on the power play he has only scored three points on the season (although he plays three minutes per game in mismatched lineups). Local fans, expressing their rage on social media, are already calling it “sabotage” of Calgary by Huberdeau; perhaps the fact that the player’s motivation has decreased after the $84 million contract, which became the largest in the club’s history, was also played out. A role.
Is Huberdeau finished as a player? Bad hockey players cannot score more than one point per game for several seasons in a row, Jonathan’s strengths have not disappeared, but there is a feeling that he will not show them in Calgary. Admittedly, it’s unclear which team would risk re-signing a hockey player making more than $10 million a year.
THE NAIS IS OFFICIAL EDITOR ON NAIS NEWS