Quote:
Originally Posted by FanIn80
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.
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Nope.
Your post is BS that is being intentionally misleading. He was never middle 6. He was either on a 1A / 1B type of scenario, or at the very worst top 6 if you want to call it that.
Here is where he finished in 5v5 TOI on the Panthers each of his last 5 seasons there:
21-22: 2nd
20-21: 3rd
19-20: 1st
18-19: 2nd
17-18: 3rd
He was 7th in the NHL in points over those 5 seasons, he was 15th in the 3 seasons before Bennett even got traded there (17-20).
He was always top 3 in ice time, and generally took the other teams best defensive forwards while Barkov was matched against the other teams top offensive forwards. But prior to that they had been on the same line.
Tkachuk doesn't play with Barkov either...is he a middle 6 forward?
Just a ridiculous statement and post. Calling a guy who was consistently top 10 in NHL scoring a middle 6 forward, just hilarious.
He's been terrible in Calgary, and is the worst contract in the NHL, but no reason to go back and just make stuff up about his time in Florida.