In any professional sports league with a salary cap, teams are going to have bad contracts. The NHL is no different in that regard, as there have been plenty of ugly deals over the years since the salary cap was first introduced ahead of the 2005-06 season.
The Flames, like many teams, have had their fair share of bad contracts over the years. Troy Brouwer’s four-year deal signed ahead of the 2016-17 season was a bad one in retrospect, while James Neal’s five-year deal signed prior to the 2018-19 campaign was an outright disaster. That said, neither were nearly as bad of contracts as one they are dealing with right now.
Huberdeau’s Disastrous Deal
At times, there are contracts many can see being disastrous from the second they are signed. One prime example of this was when the Toronto Maple Leafs tendered David Clarkson a seven-year deal during the 2013 offseason. This was a case of a team who was in desperate need of a big, power forward, and were forced to overpay given that several other organizations were interested. Sure enough, the now-retired Clarkson was shipped off just a season and a half later and his contract turned out to be just as bad as everyone had imagined it would be.
Other times, contracts can become worse than anybody had anticipated. That is the case of Jonathan Huberdeau, who — after recording a career-high 115 points in his final season with the Florida Panthers — signed an eight-year, $84 million extension with the Flames. While the $10.5 million salary was viewed as a slight overpay, it seemed relatively fair value for what he had produced over the last several seasons. There was concern about how it could age in the final few years, but that was looked at as a problem to deal with down the road.
What no one anticipated, however, was that the deal would turn ugly before it even began. In his first season with the Flames, Huberdeau was still on an old contract, which carried a cap hit of $5.9 million. That was a major bargain during his days with the Panthers, but was arguably an overpay in itself in his first season with the Flames, as he recorded just 55 points in 2022-23, a 60-point decline from the season prior.
Related: Flames 2023 Was a Year Filled With Perpetual Mediocrity
Latest News & Highlights
When the Flames fired head coach Darryl Sutter after the 2022-23 campaign, fans had hope Huberdeau would be able to find his game once…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at The Hockey Writers…