[Philly06Cup]

Originally Posted by heep

Gaudreau hasn’t played an elite 200ft game in his life in the NHL. Under Sutter his defensive/away from puck game went from terrible to passable. But he has electric game breaking agility, vision and playmaking ability offensively.


By many metrics, Johnny was literally one of the best defensive forwards last year. Elite plus minus; elite possession, backcheck, forecheck. Put on the ice vs others top lines, at the end of games.



Huberdeau is a more complete player, not sure how you could argue against that, if you’ve watched both.


See above. Those jfresh charts and other analytic graphs also show Huberdeau to be bad defensively, despite him playing PK. The X-factor of course is Sutter, contrasting Florida's run and gun style. For now, what we do know is that Johnny can be elite defensively, while Hubey hasn't shown that.



They’re in the same tier and it’s not a LOL to argue one is better than the other.



For me, what is LOL is the immediate rose colored glasses that Huberdeau is this mega superstar. No, I don't think he's close in player to Gaudreau. Imagine a Team Canada at the Olympics: Huberdeau has never been in conversation until this outlier year; would say Johnny makes it in most years if he were Canadian. If the Flames pay what some are suggesting, they will be buying high and possibly handicapping themselves in the future. Would be happy if he proves me wrong. In Sutter we trust

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