Sportsnet: Elliotte Friedman on the Jeff Marek Show on Friday talking about the Calgary Flames, Jonathan Huberdeau and some of their pending UFAs.
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Marek: “But that now marks 10 games. Zero points. Jonathan Huberdeau. Who’s in the first year of the eighth year $84 million deal. I don’t want to pile on Jonathan Huberdeau, there’s enough I’m sure in the local market about people piling on Jonathan Huberdeau, but this is, this is more than just a small problem with the Calgary Flames.
And you know, they have to almost continue to double down just to try to, try to make this work all the while making decisions on (Elias) Lindholm and (Noah) Hanafin and (Chris) Tanev, et cetera, et cetera.
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Thoughts on that game night and thoughts on the Calgary Flames and this Jonathan Huberdeau contract. It’s like oh, for December for Huberdeau.
Friedman: “Well, first of all, like you said, all the best (Leo) Carlsson. There’s an MRI morning, I believe in in California, and , and you know, I just hope it’s not as bad as looked.
And second, I’m actually kind of impressed with Calgary considering all of everything that’s kind of going on around them. They play really hard, you know, their, their points percentage is .500, which won’t get them into the playoffs, but they’re, they’re kind of around there. They’re definitely battling. Like it’s a team that’s, they’ve shown a lot of like, if I was Darren Pang, I would call it gumption, considering everything that’s kind of flying around them. It would be easy for them to fall apart and they sure haven’t done that.
Well, like, I do think that, I do think that Lindholm and Hanifin and Tanev will be traded at some point. We’ll we’ll see where that all goes.
But you know, Huberdeau, like to me this Huberdeau thing is almost similar to what we’ve talked about with (Ilya) Samsonov. You know, Samsonov doesn’t have a long-term contract so it’s, you can move on if you want. But the thing which, with Huberdeau is, but the thing is said about Samsonov night is that, is you have to work with him. You have to say, Okay, you’re going out in the ice, and we’re going to work on your game and we’re going to try to put you back together.
And that’s all you can do with Huberdeau too. Like you you’re not buying him out. You’re not being able to trade him unless it comes at enormous costs. And then, so like you have no other option but to a) appeal to the players pride. Like the player has to be a partner in it to and from everything that Huberdeau saying sounds like he’s trying to be.
But all you can do is work with them and say, and find either players he can play with or you know, just keep working on everything you can do. Just try to put him in position to succeed.
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And I realized this, what I’m saying hear sounds really hollow because I don’t think anybody has answers. Like it’s not like the Calgary Flames, like anything I’m saying here is, is a secret to the Calgary Flames, ‘we’ve got to find a guy who Huberdeau can play with, why didn’t we think about it 20 games ago.’ That’s, that’s not a secret to them. I don’t have a lot of good answers. But you know, you can’t just give up. You have to find a way.”
