The 2024-25 season was a redemption ark of sorts for Jonathan Huberdeau. The 31-year-old, acquired in a blockbuster trade that saw Matthew Tkachuk head to the Florida Panthers, was never going to get back to being the 115-point player he was in 2021-22. In fact, he managed just 107 points through his first two seasons with the Calgary Flames.
His massive struggles resulted in him becoming a whipping boy in rather quick fashion in Calgary, as his play didn’t live up anywhere close to the level of his $10.5 million salary. His contract was looking like the worst in the NHL, leaving the fan base and organization with nothing to do but hope he could rediscover his old form.
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That appeared to happen, at least to an extent, in 2024-25. Though he was still nowhere near a point-per-game player, he had a respectable season with 28 goals and 62 points. The relatively strong showing on a Flames team that struggled to score seemed to gain the respect of the fan base. It also made his contract, which runs through the 2030-31 season, look somewhat more manageable. Unfortunately, that good grace he had made with Flames fans has already gone to the wayside.
Huberdeau Having Career-Worst Season
Any hopes of Huberdeau being able to carry last season’s momentum into 2024-25 have diminished. Through 43 games, he has just eight goals and 21 points. After missing five games due to injury, he’s on pace for just 14 goals and 36 points. That point total would serve as the lowest of his NHL career.
What makes this season hard to grasp is that last season, pucks seemed to be finding the back of the net with relative ease for Huberdeau. The 28 tallies actually served as the second-highest mark of his career, falling only to the 30 he recorded in both the 2021-22 and 2018-19 seasons.
A deeper dive, however, shows that last season’s production may have been an outlier. Huberdeau, who has scored on 12.7 per cent of shots throughout his NHL career, converted on 18.3 per cent of his opportunities last season. That served as a career high, with his previous best of 16.4 per cent coming in 2020-21.
To little surprise, that has come back down to earth this season. Huberdeau has scored on just eight of his 66 shots this season for a conversion rate of 12.1 per cent. What this suggests is that if anything, Huberdeau was a byproduct of some good luck last season more than anything else. Based on what we saw in his first two seasons as the Flames, along with his play to this point in 2025-26, this current version of Huberdeau is what the fan base may be forced to endear going forward.
Flames Can’t Do Anything About It
Perhaps the most frustrating thing overall for the Flames is that there is nothing they can do other than hope that the former star-calibre player can figure things out. That is feeling less likely each and every day, but there are simply no other options.
Not only does Huberdeau have a full no-movement clause until the end of the 2028-29 campaign, but his contract is essentially buyout proof. There would be little cap relief for the Flames in the short term, and they would be paying him many seasons after his contract is officially expired.
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The positive out of this is that the Flames, at least at this point in time, have plenty of room to work from a cap perspective. General manager Craig Conroy has done an excellent job at keeping plenty of cap space available, which makes the Huberdeau contract much easier to stomach. That said, things could get much worse as this team begins to get more competitive, as there is little reason to believe Huberdeau is going to turn things around for the duration of his contract.
