Quote:
Originally Posted by boogerz
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. |
Who is putting this all on Hubredeau? I just had a post saying how I blame both him and the coaches/team.
But when he is 11th on the team in scoring of course there is big part that is on him. As I said if he were leading the team but producing at a lower level than in Florida I would have a lot more sympathy for it being a systems issue. But the fact he can't outproduce Coleman, Backlund, Hanifin, Anderson, Mangiapane is on him. They are playing in the same "terrible" system under the same restrictive coach and finding ways to produce.
And I don't think this is a roster punching below its weight. this is a very mediocre team getting very mediocre results. At best on paper you could try to argue they should be closer to 20 than 26 but is that really any different at the end of the day?