Quote:
Originally Posted by dammage79
Time to worry about Huberdeau IMO, is after next season.
I don't know if this season should count. It's not pretty but absolutely nobody would have imagined these kinds of production struggles. No. Body.
Huberdeaus body of work over his entire career says this shouldn't be happening at all. So what's the problem?
Possible explanations:
Trade sewered his mind.
Pressure of trying to be the leader of the new team and justifying his new contract.
Play style is square peg round hole type stuff.
I'll take all of the above. He's going to have to sort that out in the off-season and get back to normal.
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Not to toot my own horn, but this is pretty much what I expected to happen last summer when Huberdeau was acquired. I suspected he would struggle in this system and that’s exactly what has occurred.
Even in the Florida games that I watched, there were long stretches of him looking invisible and innocuous in the offensive zone. Occasionally he’d make a slick no look pass or spin move to find an open linemate, but in tight checking playoff style hockey, those same passes he attempts would not work because there’d be a body in the way and it would be intercepted just like it is now.
I said this about a month or 2 ago, but I think it’s even more true today than it was then, I think the best explanation I have for Huberdeau’s struggles is that he’s the type of player who’s a product of his environment rather than the opposite. He’s a counter striker and with time and space, his elite vision, slick moves and deft passing can still be lethal, but it’s almost like he requires an environment that produces time and space naturally for him to unleash his counter attack i.e. rope-a-dope hockey.
Conversely, Huberdeau struggles badly playing in the opposite environment where time and space is extremely limited and you have to make quick decisions because the opposition is closing in. This is where Huberdeau gets “stuck” as he said, then he panics and makes the wrong play. From what I’ve seen so far, he doesn’t excel at absorbing contact or holding on to pucks to wait for seams to open up whereas Tkachuk and Gaudreau did excel at and it allowed them to succeed playing in this system.
Ultimately, I don’t know if Huberdeau can ever “figure it out,” here. I suspect he’ll need to completely transform and evolve his game which I don’t see happening. I suspect he’ll need a new coach, new system or at the very least, linemates who can generate more time and space for him which this current roster does not have in abundance. Ironically, his linemates were probably hoping he’d be able to do that for them which definitely has not been the case.