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Originally Posted by SuperMatt18
How much was Gaudreau-Lindholm-Tkachuk's success because of Sutter...or how much was because they knew having great seasons was maybe the easiest way to get away from Sutter.
More and more it's feeling like the latter to me.
I'm not sure we can give Sutter credit for Tkachuk and Gaudreau having such a great season. I'm sure some of his system helped, but to me that feels more like it's 80% them and 20% Sutter at this point.
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I think there's an element that he might have added to their game that you can give him credit for, but by no means did they achieve what they did solely because of him.
If you go back and look at that season, they played OUTSIDE his system and played a strong east/west, cross seam, high skill zone entry and pressure system. The exact opposite of Sutter's hard nose north/south, low percentage shooting system and alas look what happened.
I think the same needs to be done for Huberdeau to blossom here, you have to build around his strengths and let him get back to 100+ points. He put up 115 points playing primarily with Duclair and Bennett, the same Bennett flames fans had given up on entirely for being awful in the regular season.
Like most of us expected out of the gate here, you would think Huberdeau and Lindholm would have clicked for some big points this year, but for whatever reason after 5 games Sutter squashed that and forced Huberdeau into a uncreative bland brand of hockey.