Players aren’t good at assessing their own health
Is the theory here that he is faking it or the team is forcing him to pretend he’s injured? Is that really the theory?
These days it's always the theory when a player gets put on LTIR.
He needs a finisher on his line, he is a 2 assists for every goal guy, 25-30 goals would be fantastic next year but he won't hit 80-90 without us getting someone to fill the net on his line.
I'd love Lindholm to do it but who knows if he is going to be here.
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Players aren’t good at assessing their own health
Is the theory here that he is faking it or the team is forcing him to pretend he’s injured? Is that really the theory?
Along with the fact that him and some Roswell aliens were involved in the JFK shooting.
If you are going conspiracy theories you have to go big or go home.
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I'd wager that he is significantly closer to 90 points than he is to 55 assuming he's healthy. I'd put good money on him being in that 0.95-1.10 pt/s game range.
The guy had just 15 PP points last season.. despite pacing for 36.5 on the man advantage the previous 4 years.. Correcting that alone puts him at just under a point a game pace, and that's not even taking into account all of the other areas of the game in which Darryl completely underutilized Huberdeau's skillset.
That's not the wager I posed.
I'll simplify it further, because dino glibly remarked that ppg would make the contract worth it. I disagree, even if players are becoming higher paid and the cap is increasing, but I am willing to accept it. But, FTR, Aho >> Huberdeau at multiple aspects of the game, is younger, and signed 8x 9.5.
So, the question is, who is willing to stake a significant sum on Huberdeau cresting 82 points? Not getting close, but actually surmounting PPG over the season?
Even if you double his PP production he doesnt get there. Him and lindy have no real chemistry. Hell, Backlund probably has the most chemistry with him and he already helped backs get his best offensive season. I just don't see the pieces around him necessary to get there.
I certainly hope I am wrong, but I just can't make it work in my mind.
Players aren’t good at assessing their own health
Is the theory here that he is faking it or the team is forcing him to pretend he’s injured? Is that really the theory?
I suppose the skepticism revolves around them placing him on IR for the season. Usually there's a concussion diagnosis, surgery recovery, or something. It could be legit but we just saw something fishy like this play out with Mike Smith where they can use the grey area of wear and tear as a means to shut a player down for a year. Player gets paid and teams get cap relief so everyone is happy. Even local Leafs media is kind of skeptical.
Players aren’t good at assessing their own health
Is the theory here that he is faking it or the team is forcing him to pretend he’s injured? Is that really the theory?
At what point when the same trend keeps happening is it not right to question it? A guy with injury history who gets to collect millions of dollars while spending time with his family just enjoying life. Ya, that is not hard to believe at all. There is a difference between injury prone and not being able to play and I highly doubt Murray is in the latter category when he was cleared as 100% healthy 2 months ago. The league has to start clamping down in this. Still not as bad as Vegas who after pulling the Mark Stone stunt basically came out and said due to his back issues they will just pull the same trick every year. Like at what point is enough enough?
Either you believe the league is favoring certain teams in application of rules or you believe that the teams have ample medical evidence to back up LTIR claims.
In scenario 1, the league will deny and we will just be left with complainy comments. AND we have to believe that the billionaires who own the teams are ok with their buddies getting a better deal than them. After all, it is the owners that would both be most impacted financially and be in a position to make the league crack down on this.
Scenario 2 is much easier to believe. Now, you can have whatever opinion you want on some of these medical professionals, but it's pretty clear the league believes in their opinions, so your own opinion on them is totally moot.
Players aren’t good at assessing their own health
Is the theory here that he is faking it or the team is forcing him to pretend he’s injured? Is that really the theory?
It's always an overpaid player from a team that needs cap relief
When has this ever happened to a top end guy where we know they are done for the year in July after being healthy the previous season.
It's hilarious people still pretend shenanigans don't happen with LTIR.
Nearly every player in the league is playing through something. My "medical professional" will give me any number of prescription drugs if I go in and say my backs sore...even if it isn't...how the hell do they know. It's not like these systems can't be gamed like ####.
Turnip trucks...no wonder Brad went to the Leafs...first to trade always injured Monahan but this is fine lol.
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Last edited by dino7c; 07-26-2023 at 03:25 PM.
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It's always an overpaid play whoa teams needs cap relief
When has this ever happened to a top end guy where we know they are done for the year in July after being healthy the previous season.
It's hilarious people still pretend shenanigans don't happen with LTIR.
Nearly every player in the league is playing through something
Well it happened with Vegas last year when they said Stone would miss the season. I remember saying during the season when they were a playoff team that Stone would come back in time for the playoffs and I took heat for it then, his back was career ending, no way he is playing, blah blah blah and what happened? When the news came out about Landeskog missing this year I said the same thing will happen there, again the backlash, let's see if I go 2 for 2.
The NHL is going by the team doctor reports. Who pays the team doctors? The team. That is how Matt Murray who was 100% two months ago is suddenly unfit to play for an entire year. The NHL needs to have their own physicians to look into it but the NHL does not care.
It's always an overpaid player from a team that needs cap relief
When has this ever happened to a top end guy where we know they are done for the year in July after being healthy the previous season.
It's hilarious people still pretend shenanigans don't happen with LTIR.
Nearly every player in the league is playing through something. My "medical professional" will give me any number of prescription drugs if I go in and say my backs sore...even if it isn't...how the hell do they know. It's not like these systems can't be gamed like ####.
Turnip trucks...no wonder Brad went to the Leafs...first to trade always injured Monahan but this is fine lol.
Not suggesting there are no shenanigans here, but teams that need cap relief would be the only ones to put a player on LTIR because they need the cap space, and using LTIR prevents you from tolling daily cap space.
If a team doesn't need to, there's no reason for them to do it.
Not suggesting there are no shenanigans here, but teams that need cap relief would be the only ones to put a player on LTIR because they need the cap space, and using LTIR prevents you from tolling daily cap space.
If a team doesn't need to, there's no reason for them to do it.
Of course if a team doesn't have to they won't but what happens when it will cost you a 1st rnd pick+ to dump that contract? I think these teams clearly will take the instant relief there.
Stone and his miraculous game one recovery nobody saw coming
But the medical professional said lol
It boggles the mind people are that dumb...if you don't care that's fine but don't pretend there isn't shady stuff going on and be smug about it.
Medical professionals are just people...I know some terrible doctors I wouldn't trust to walk my dog
I think it’s much more likely he just played through the injury. Like a lot of guys. Most guys, especially vets, are really beat up. They absolutely use LTIR to recover and for cap relief. The recovering part is how you convince players to sit out. But all this “miraculous recovery” nonsense spits in the face of the other conversation going on in hockey. Which is players drugging up and playing through injuries. Leading to life long problems. But let’s fixate on cap loophole abuse….
Murray has missed time due to head and neck issues like 4 times in the last 5 seasons. Him saying “I’m fine” doesn’t mean anything.
Even with his terrible season last year, Huberdeau should have had at least 15 more assists if players like Kadri could get the puck of their stick sooner. There was probably at least 10 times where Kadri had an empty net from Hubys pass but he took a second or two to stick handle before shooting. Sherangovich or Coronato will put that puck in the net next season.
Contract: $10.5M x eight years
Surplus Value: -$33.5M
Positive Value Probability: 15 percent
Whoever Jonathan Huberdeau’s agent is deserves a lot of credit for cashing in at the perfect time with a desperate franchise on a deal that would likely one day turn into an albatross contract.
What few could’ve imagined is that day coming before the contract even kicked in.
There were some red flags during Huberdeau’s “MVP” calibre season in 2021-22, and the following season in a new locale offered a chance for Huberdeau to prove them wrong. In Calgary under Darryl Sutter, he had an opportunity to be The Guy and improve his defensive standing.
From Calgary’s perspective, it would’ve been awfully wise to actually see Huberdeau prove those things wrong before giving him $84 million. Extending a 29-year-old who is a year out from free agency before he played a single game for the team after a career year should’ve been an extraordinarily easy thing to not do. But the Flames — fresh off a jilted split with two franchise players — did it anyway, and they’re left with a contract that looks dead on arrival. In Year 1, Huberdeau projects to be only an $8 million player … and it gets so much worse from there.
From that vantage point, it’s easy to see why Huberdeau’s new deal lands as the third worst in hockey. He scored just 55 points in 79 games last year — less than half of what he had the year before — and he’s now entering his 30s where the decline is much more swift and sudden. At his price tag, the expectation for the next eight years is a Net Rating of plus-11 and while Huberdeau isn’t projected to be far off that next season, Father Time will make that mountain a much steeper climb.
Having said that, this is still Jonathan Huberdeau, a player who scored 115 points in 2021-22 and was a consistent 90-point threat before that. This is also a player who came to a new team with a coach who struggled to get the best out of anyone last season. A bounce-back feels extremely likely next season for a player as talented as Huberdeau, one that should reignite Huberdeau’s game and tilt his future trajectory back in his favour. The model does expect a bounce-back to 80 points, but there’s a chance for a bigger one considering how far he fell last season.
Maybe not all the way back to that of a fair deal — he is in his 30s, after all — but it wouldn’t be a shock to not see Huberdeau on this list next season. He arguably has the most skill to do so of anyone on this list.
Contract: $9.5M x seven years
Surplus Value: $49.7M
Positive Value Probability: 96 percent
It’s still extremely difficult to believe that the Florida Panthers were able to lock up Matthew Tkachuk for eight years at a price tag under $10 million per season.
Tkachuk was coming off a career year where he had entrenched himself as a franchise winger. Maybe it was a safer bet for him to cash in on that and not risk a down year away from Calgary’s 2021-22 super line with Elias Lindholm and Johnny Gaudreau. But it still felt ludicrous given his age, what he had already shown and with a rising salary cap looming. At the time it already looked like one of the biggest steals in the NHL; a year later that’s only been confirmed further after an MVP-caliber season.
The Panthers superstar posted arguably the most impactful season at five-on-five in the analytics era. What Florida did while Tkachuk was on the ice was unprecedented, leading to another career year in points. Then he took that a step further in the playoffs where he was A Problem to every team that faced him. Tkachuk is a unicorn in this league, a very rare blend of power and finesse, shooting and passing, offense and defense.
He does it all and he does it all well and that’s turned him into a player firmly in the conversation for one of the NHL’s five best. Tkachuk is definitively the league’s best winger and can influence the game at a high level from the flank.
That’s a player that should be worth 17.5 percent of the salary cap on average over the next seven seasons — a cap hit that lands between $15-$17 million during the life of his contract. Instead, Tkachuk will be paid closer to 10 percent, which is in line with the 50th highest cap hit percentage in the league.
Huberdeau's contract was unlikely to ever be a good contract based on his age and length of the contract. I think most people recognized that it wouldn't age well, but it was just the price of doing business. Using his most recent season to judge it makes more sense than using a season that ended more than a calendar year ago. You can't blame people for being skeptical that he lives up to the contract. Even if Huberdeau had over a PPG season last year, it would probably still be in the top 10 worst just based on how long contracts for players in their 30s typically don't age well.
It's an assessment based on the most recent results, which seems fair. Recent data should always trump historical data. His historical results indicate that he has had more to give in the past and could rebound, which is likely why he only ranked it as the 3rd worst contract and not the worst. Recent results indicate it is anything than certain. If he does rebound back to his Florida production, re-assess then.
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Long term its a good thing. Keep shining the light on the franchise and embarrassing us into getting with the times. The secret scrolls, wink wink, inside baseball feel of the business side of the franchise is really off putting.
The fact that Tkachuk isn't wearing a captains C for this team on a long term deal and everyone in the city thinks it's "Canada", "he's like his dad", or "it's the city" is BS. Its how the team is run from the top down.
Next up is running Huberdeau all the way out of town and to Montreal. We're already two steps into that predictable dance.
Meh. If you somebody wants to use what to this point is an outlier of data as the baseline in projecting an eight year deal then so be it. To me that seems like an exercise in futility.
