Quote:
Originally Posted by Classic_Sniper
I don’t think Huberdeau could play any faster, he’s already having trouble playing at the current pace which was a big criticism Darryl offered him last year.
I’ve said this before and will continue to say it, Huberdeau needs to find a way to evolve his game. If he’s not going to produce in transition, then he needs to check for his chances like the other lines are expected to. That’s how this team was built, it’s how they’re coached and it doesn’t appear things will be changing any time soon. So it’s up to him now to put on the work boots, start playing with more pace, go out and make things happen instead of waiting for things to happen.
That’s why he looks invisible right now. He has no other avenues to fall back on when his bread and butter has been taken away. It’s not all that different from when Gaudreau had his struggles back in 2020, but his game evolved in 21-22 and he was able to find other ways to produce when opponents took away his bread and butter, that was a big evolution to his game. Throw in the defensive component to his game and his line basically became an unstoppable force.
|
This has been a problem with Flames fans mentality for years..
You can't bring in a certain player and expect him to completely change his game, after playing a certain way basically his whole career, and maintain the same level of success.
We need to play players to their strengths if we expect them to contribute at the same levels they have prior.
I can understand getting an offensive player to play in a checking role to build his overall game but expecting him to contribute at the same level isn't overly fair to the player.
Same goes with expecting Huberdeau to play primarily a dump and chase, cycle the puck down low game and expect the same results he got when his line would carry the puck in and make quick plays off the rush.
Maybe if we had a player to play him with that was elite at making plays off the boards - like Tkachuk has shown in the past - he could have stronger offensive numbers.
The puzzling part about it all is Conroy said they wanted to play a more modern offensive system but the results have not been there as of yet.
They are more boring to watch than ever before. They have no identity and can't get anything going at 5v5 or on the PP.