Quote:
Originally Posted by Spurs
I would buy the coaching excuse if Hubreadeau were on pace to get 70-80 points or at least leading the team in scoring. Then you could say the system was holding him back from putting up the numbers that he did at his peak in Florida, but when he is 11th on the team put up 55 points last year and is on pace to finish below that this year that is not a coaching issue that is a player issue.
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Huberdeau is putting in the effort on the ice. The only thing wrong with him right now is the complete and utter lack of confidence.
It's 90% a systems and coaching issue. When we look at the bigger picture:
- Marc Savard coached the 3rd best powerplay in the league in 2019-20 when he was with the Blues, along with offensively punching above his weight with the Windsor Spitfires. He ran a Blues PP1 unit that featured vaunted superstars like Schenn, Rielly, Schwartz, and Perron. Yet, he somehow can't do any better than 28th in the league with the Flames' heavy-hitters (Huberdeau, Lindholm, or Kadri).
- The Flames' impressively deep back-end bolstered by Andersson, Weegar (7th in AS voting 2020-21 and best dman at the 2023 WC), Hanifin, and Tanev is somehow the third leakiest defense in the Western Conference (only better than the Hawks and Sharks).
- The Flames are continuing their trend of having great advanced stats, but struggling to score goals and making back-up goalies look like stars.
I genuinely don't know how some people are putting all of this on Huberdeau without questioning the quality of the rest of the on-ice product coming from the Flames right now. This is a roster that is punching below its weight.
If they improve the underlying system and coaching issues, the rest (e.g. improved performance from Huberdeau) should follow.