Better luck next year: The Calgary Flames have a Jonathan Huberdeau problem

Or perhaps Jonathan Huberdeau has a Calgary Flames problem.

Welcome back to Better Luck Next Year, a series that will focus on each team as they get eliminated from Stanley Cup Playoff contention and the Stanley Cup Playoffs. What went wrong, why it went wrong, what (if anything) went right, and what is next. We continue today with the next team to be officially eliminated from Stanley Cup Playoff contention: The Calgary Flames.

When the Calgary Flames had to retool their roster two summers ago they seemed to do a pretty good job in navigating through a tough situation.

Johnny Gaudreau left in free agency, Matthew Tkachuk wanted to sign somewhere else and it left former general manager Brad Treliving in what seemed to be a no-win spot. At the time, he tried to make the most of it by signing Nazem Kadri in free agency and getting a strong return for Tkachuk by landing forward Jonathan Huberdeau and defenseman MacKenzie Weegar in the trade. Huberdeau was, at the time, one of the top offensive forwards in the league while Weegar was an outstanding top-four defenseman and a borderline top-pairing defenseman (depending on who you ask or what game you were watching him in).

On top of that, they avoided what has turned out to be a potential albatross of a contract in Gaudreau.

The bad news? They may have ended up with a worse contract in Huberdeau and now a new front office is trying to navigate through the early stages of what is probably going to be a difficult retool or rebuild.

Just two years ago the Flames, thanks in part to Gaudreau and Tkachuk at the top of the lineup, finished with one of the best records in the league. They took a big step backwards a year ago despite the promising offseason on paper, all of which resulted in some big overhaul to the front office and coaching staff.

New general manager, new coach, new year and new hopes.

The coach aspect was the one thing that I thought might give the Flames some reason for optimism this season. Former coach Darryl Sutter is the type of boss that can grind on players and wear them down, and the players were reportedly fed up in dealing with him. It also seemed like that might have been one of the big problems with Huberdeau’s first year in Calgary. Sutter’s system is not one that lends itself to offense or creativity, he never seemed to fully trust Huberdeau and would tend to play him on his off wing, and it resulted in him going from a top-five scorer and MVP candidate in the league all the way down to 55 points in 79 games. With the way Huberdeau defends (not particularly well) he is the type of player that has to produce to be a positive value to the team. He did not produce.

Add in a shockingly down year from starting goalie Jacob Markstrom and it was not hard to see why the 2022-23 Flames regressed so significantly and missed the playoffs.

Surely those two could not be that bad again in 2023-24, especially with a new coach and a new voice and vision leading them.

Well, about that….