Quote:
Originally Posted by yourbestfriend
Suffice to say that half way into his first season as a Flame, Huberdeau has played below expectations. For someone who is going to be soon making 10.5M, you'd expect that kind of player to be the line driver and the player who makes his line mates better. As a whole, he hasn't shown anywhere near the type of skill or IQ to be that kind of player so far.
And for me, that is quite shocking. If you normalize his numbers in Florida, he's a 73pt player. And if you look at this last 5years, he's a 93pt player. All of this was under four different coaches (Gallant, Boughner, Quinnville, Brunnette). So it's hard to say that Sutter's system is holding him back, especially when Gaudreau and Tkachuk both put up 100pts+ last year. You would have to go back to the 14/15 season when he was 21years old to find the last time he had a lower PPG than he's currently at.
You can point to adjustment period, but look at Gaudreau and Tkachuk. Gaudreau is at a PPG pace playing with Nyquist and Jenner and Tkachuk is currently tracking for 106pts with Barkov and Verhaeghe. With the exception of Barkov, Huberdeau has been put with better players (ex Lucic since that was a recent phenomena.)
The line combinations we've tried with him this year are also better than those he put up 115pts with (mainly Bennett and Duclair). The whole thing is just odd.
The only person who can turn this around is himself. It's not so much on the coaches, system or line mates. At the end of the day, he's got to deliver. The team is doing just OK right now, but think of how much better we would be if Huberdeau was taking over games the way Gaudreau and Tkachuk did. Here's hoping he really turns it around the next half of the season, although I'm not so optimistic based on what we've seen so far.
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Once again Tkachuk and Gaudreau already decided they would leave long before the offseason.
Huberdeau has zero desire or intention of leaving Florida and was under the impression he was going to be negotiating a extension.
Much easier to fit in when you checked out in May and long before that likely.
Harder to adjust when you are blindsided and this wasn't what you wanted. Yes it was July but it doesn't hit you until you actually show up to a new city and surroundings.