I see absolutely nothing in any of Huberdeau's statements that I wouldn't assume would be an absolutely natural feeling.
His old team traded him and brought in Tkachuk, who has been the better playoff performer. Meanwhile, Huberdeau crapped the bed so bad in Calgary that it became obvious that rebuild was required. He's now in his 30s, nearing the end of his prime, and has to burn several years while the Flames rebuild and there's nothing he can do about it.
He took the type of contract that will provide his family with generational wealth, but, as a pro athlete, seeing a championship fall out of site while your old team holds up a cup must be tough. And when he signed that contract, it seemed as though the Flames were going to compete. They also brought in Kadri and were offering their depth pieces long-term contracts too. He played a roll, through his own crap play, in ushering in the rebuild but that was not what he signed up for.
Why did Florida win? They had amazing depth, but also had an all-time great playoff performance from their goalie. Bobrovsky had a good but not stellar defence in front of him. His stats don't really tell the whole story, but he was amazing.
If the Flames had 2023 and 2024 playoff Bobrovsky instead of 2022 Jacob Markstrom in net for them in 2022 the Calgary Flames are likely a very different team right now and may have even put up another Stanley Cup banner in the Dome. Things didn't work out that way. That's how sports work.
We don't need to read to much into everything that happened, and I do not see anything out of the ordinary with anything Huberdeau has said about the situation. Huberdeau now has to accept a mentoring role on a rebuilding team instead of gunning for a championship. He can cry himself to sleep on his large piles of money. The Flames have already paid Huberdeau about $17 million to be not so great at his job, and they owe him more than $60 milllion more.
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