32 Teams, 32 Players: Jonathan Huberdeau

The Calgary Flames are paying him a lot of money and not getting much of a return on that investment.

Now that the 2024-25 NHL season has arrived we are going to highlight one player on each team that stands out for the season. What kind of player? Well, a player that could make a difference, be an X-factor, be on the verge of a breakout, or just simply be a player under the microscope and needing to have a big season.

Basically — which player do I think is the most fascinating on each team.

We are not going in any particularly order and continue today with Jonathan Huberdeau of the Calgary Flames.

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The sudden drop-off in production from Jonathan Huberdeau might be one of the most staggering developments in the NHL over the past few years. It was not that long ago, only a couple of seasons, that he was one of the elite offensive players and playmakers in the NHL. His 2021-22 season saw him lead the league in assists, finish as the runner-up in the scoring race, set a single season record for most points by a left winger and finish in the top-five of the MVP voting.

It was part of a four-year run where he was the fourth-highest scoring player in hockey, trailing only Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and Patrick Kane. He was as good as it gets offensively and a key part of a Panthers team that had rebuild its way into a playoff caliber team and won the Presidents’ Trophy as the league’s best team during the 2021-22 season.

When the Panthers fizzled out in the second round of that postseason, they recognized they needed a little something more to get over the hump and pulled off one of the biggest blockbuster trades of the decade when they sent Huberdeau and defenseman MacKenzie Weegar to the Calgary Flames for Matthew Tkachuk.

At the time, it seemed like a pretty big win-win deal for both teams.

The Panthers were getting one of the league’s best two-way players that was just entering his prime years in the league.

The Flames received a massive haul for a player that was not going to re-sign with them and were still going to have an elite scorer on the roster. They even managed to get Huberdeau signed to an eight-year, $84 million contract extension to keep him in Calgary.

Then everything immediately went wrong for him on the ice. Huberdeau’s style of play clashed with former head coach Darryl Sutter’s vision for hockey, the Flames did not have the complementary cast of players around Huberdeau that the Panthers had, and his production went from 115 points during the 2021-22 season all the way down to 55 points in 2022-23 despite playing a full season’s worth of games. A 60-point drop in scoring for a player that, at the time, should have still been reasonably close to his prime scoring levels is shocking.

But it was also kind of easy to try and explain it away. Maybe it was the coaching. Maybe it was the system. Maybe it was adjusting to a new team, a new city and a new way of doing things. Maybe the team around him just stunk. Maybe he just needed a fresh start.

That’s a lot of maybes.

Then the 2023-24 season came and instead of bouncing back, Huberdeau only managed to get worse.

Now the Flames are stuck in a situation with a player that might be totally cooked offensively and could have the worst contract in hockey.

Let’s talk about it.