Quote:
Originally Posted by SuperMatt18
Calling him a career middle 6 guy is laughable.
He had the third most points in the NHL in the three seasons prior to becoming a Flame. He was an elite point producer and top line talent.
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Yeah, and he did all that on the second line. You know what the second line is? Middle six. It's also the line that doesn't play against the other teams' top defenders.
Top six guys have the ability to put up points regardless of who they play against. A top six player is someone who plays on the second line only because there isn't room for them on the top line. They can move between the first and second lines at any point in any game without missing a beat. Forsberg playing behind Sakic, Fedorov playing behind Yzerman, Malkin playing behind Crosby.
Huberdeau was never a top six guy. In fact, I remember the hype when he was drafted and a couple seasons later he was looking like a bust (very similar to Lafreniere in NY).
Middle six players are either offensively gifted, but are easily shutdown or defensively gifted and used in shutdown roles.
Huberdeau had the perfect setting in Florida. They had a massively elite player in Barkov that took a lot of defensive focus away from the second line, but they also had a some other offensive talent on the second line, in guys like Bennett, that Huberdeau could play with. Not to mention Bennett is an absolute puck hound, which meshes well with a perimeter player like Huberdeau. His two best seasons were on Bennett's wing.
The really not-awesome part about everything, is that we don't just need a Bennett (we actually have a smarter Bennett in Coleman, anyway), but we also need an ACTUAL $10M player that requires enough defensive focus that there's nothing left to put on Huberdeau.