Calgary Flames star left winger Jonathan Huberdeau has had a stellar season this year. But in this cover story from THN's 2022 Trade Deadline Preview, writer Matt Larkin covered Huberdeau's ascent as an elite competitor with the Florida Panthers:
APPRECIATION VALUE
By Matt Larkin
A 1999 Saturn Station Wagon? Really?
Imagine being an impressionable teenager, thrilled to pass your driver’s test and own your first car. Better yet: mom and dad run a used-car dealership. You’re not getting driven onto some dusty lot to buy the cheapest thing on wheels; you have your pick of the family fleet. This will be sweet.
But…nope. You get that ’99 Saturn, the blandest, most forgettable vehicle on the lot.
Alain Huberdeau has run Prev-automobiles Inc. in Prevost, Que., for more than 30 years, and even he admits the car he gave his youngest son, Jonathan, was second-rate. “It was not a nice car,” said Alain with a laugh. “Five-speed nowhere nothing.”
But that car did exactly what it was supposed to. It was an intelligent, efficient purchase. It got great gas mileage. It was affordable. It smoothly transported 16-year-old Jonathan to and from Saint John, N.B., where he began playing for the QMJHL’s Sea Dogs in 2009-10. It forced him to learn how to drive a stick shift. It also instilled a brainy sensibility in young Jonathan.
Rather than feeling entitled to the fanciest sports car on the lot, he learned the value of making the most out of what he had. He learned he would have to work harder than everyone around him if he wanted to make it as an NHL hockey player with ordinary skating ability. Even when he earned his first NHL contract and signing bonus after the Florida Panthers drafted him third overall in 2011, he made the sensible choice of another used car from the Huberdeau family dealership, this time a Honda Civic. He wanted to think his way to success – behind the wheel and on the ice.
Everything in Huberdeau’s life was a slow build to progress – tracing back to his early childhood. Ironically, one of the greatest current puck wizards in hockey got his start on ice without a puck, without a stick and almost without hockey skates. Huberdeau pushed back on the latter when his parents enrolled him in speed skating as a five-year-old. That’s not to be confused with power skating, which many future hockey players try before starting organized hockey.
We’re talkin’ actual speed skating, the kind you see in the Olympics, consisting of athletes with tree-trunk legs in bodysuits zooming along the track on flat blades. Huberdeau refused to wear those, so he took speed skating in his hometown of Saint-Jerome, Que., as the only kid in the class wearing hockey skates. But he wasn’t the typical youngster yawning his way through each session, complaining of frozen feet and wishing he was playing real hockey. “I was OK with it,” Huberdeau said. “It was actually better for me to start doing speed skating because you got to learn how to skate without a stick.”
Once he got a stick in his hands, speed skating had granted him the mobility to play keepaway with other kids – particularly when playing on ponds with far more people than are allowed in a regular game. “You do learn a lot of things when you play with 40 kids who want to keep the puck for themselves,” Alain Huberdeau said. “You have to work hard to keep it, so that’s probably where he learned a lot of hockey.”
Jonathan, his older brother Sebastien and their younger sister Josiane also learned a lot about the game watching their beloved Montreal Canadiens and, more specifically, the Canadiens facing the Panthers in Florida. The Huberdeaus dabbled in the snowbird life. Every Christmas, they’d head down to South Florida in an RV, and they’d catch games whenever the Habs and Panthers overlapped on the schedule. And after beach days, the kids played for hours on end at a local roller rink.
“We’d take a break to eat dinner quick, and we’d go play a big game,” Huberdeau said. “And I feel like, in Florida, there weren’t a lot of people playing with rollerblades and playing roller hockey, so we’d have the rink to ourselves.”
Being drafted by Florida, then, constituted a homecoming for Huberdeau. By the time the Panthers called his name in 2011, he was considered a star in the making, having led Saint John to a Memorial Cup weeks earlier. But he never viewed himself as a can’t-miss prospect. He wasn’t the child phenom who had video-game stats and agents sniffing around when he was barely starting puberty. Even in bantam, he was only playing BB. His parents didn’t sense he had NHL potential until he began to excel in U-18 AAA.
The speed skating had Huberdeau’s footwork at an acceptable baseline when he started hockey, but he was no burner. He never even felt he stood out on his own teams as a kid. “I was a good player, but I wasn’t the best player,” he said. “I wasn’t the fastest guy, so it wasn’t all pretty what I was doing out there. I had good vision, and I liked to pass the puck. When you’re young and you’re not that fast, you think you’re not special. I feel like special players are fast, and they’re really skilled, and that’s not what I was. But my hockey sense brought me to where I am right now, and that’s what I had when I was younger. I tell kids sometimes, no need to give up if you’re not always the best at everything. Sometimes you just get better when you get older.”
Huberdeau carried that modesty with him into the NHL, where he embarked on what was trending toward a good-but-not-great career. He won the Calder Trophy in the shortened 2012-13 campaign but with a mere 31 points in 48 games during a down year for rookies. Across his first five seasons, he amassed 198 points in 303 games, amounting to an average stat line of 18 goals and 54 points per 82 games. He played in one playoff series over the span. No one would’ve characterized him as a bust, but he wasn’t dominating in the same way he did in his final major-junior years.
Even if he was too humble ever to see himself as that player, he did believe he could evolve himself into that player. “His biggest ability was to persevere,” Alain said. “He had some tough years in Florida, but he wanted to stick there, and he really believed in that organization. They always treat him well. He could see that one day, they would be better.”
Slowly, the Panthers surrounded Huberdeau with talent. They selected center Aleksander Barkov with the No. 2 overall pick in 2013, and defenseman Aaron Ekblad with the No. 1 pick in 2014. They stole defenseman MacKenzie Weegar in the seventh round of the 2013 draft. The company Huberdeau kept began to improve, and something started to change in his game.
He could always rag the puck, but he started to pile up points once he had teammates who could finish his setups. In 2017-18, he had a career-best 69 points. The following season, he leaped to 92. Then it was 78 in just 69 games, then 61 in 55 games, and then, by the 2021-22 all-star break, 64 in 47 games, good for the NHL scoring lead. Was it simply a natural progression of talent causing his numbers to explode? Was it the influx of high-quality teammates? GM Bill Zito has peppered the Panthers lineup with effective forwards since he took over in September 2020. Zito’s additions – from right winger Anthony Duclair to left winger Carter Verhaeghe to center Sam Bennett to right winger Sam Reinhart – have been difference-makers.
In Huberdeau’s mind, the steady incline of his play came from understanding what he did best and what gaps in his game needed filling once he reached his mid-20s. He feels he’s transitioned from support player to star-caliber by improving his play without the puck and becoming more involved in every aspect of the game, whether it’s physical play, general intensity or killing penalties. He cites defensive play as the area of his game in which he’s least confident, and he’s worked to improve it.
He has shown an innate ability to rub off on his linemates – who may have more raw physical skill – and use his brain to make them better. According to Bennett, who came over in a trade in April 2021 and has been Huberdeau’s most common linemate this year, Huberdeau has a massive influence on the team because he works so hard that he spurs others to follow him. Add in the playmaking skill and it’s no wonder Huberdeau’s linemates are always over the moon to have him on their left wing. The sense of humor doesn’t hurt, either. “He does a really good job of bringing life to our room, and he’s pretty much in the middle of every joke or every friendly chirp that’s going on,” Bennett said. “He’s always involved. He really is a leader off the ice. Of course, on the ice, too, but he really is one of the main leaders off the ice as well.”
Over the past five seasons, Huberdeau, 28, ranks sixth in the NHL in assists, seventh in points and 14th in points per game. Those are hardly the types of numbers that make a player invisible. And yet he’s played in two All-Star Games, has one second-team post-season all-star selection to his name and has received Hart Trophy votes in only one season, though that will surely change after this one.
You know he’s been cloaked in obscurity when a new linemate is surprised to learn how good he is. “When I got to actually play with him every day and see what he’s like, it’s pretty remarkable,” Bennett said. “I had no idea how talented he really was, his vision, the way he can make plays. He makes plays that I don’t think anyone else would even attempt. So it’s been really cool to actually see how gifted he is and get the chance to play with him so much.”
Has Huberdeau taken the unofficial crown from Mark Stone to become the NHL’s most underrated player? Yes, if we judge him based on how those around him evaluate his skills. “He’s deceptively fast,” said Panthers coach Andrew Brunette. “If you asked me which skill of his is underrated, it’s his puck protection and ability to hang onto the puck. It’s a little bit like Sidney Crosby, a little like Pavel Datsyuk, where they get it on a string, they get it in their feet, and you just can’t get it off him when he gets on that roll.”
There’s no clichéd chip on Huberdeau’s shoulder, no indication he feels he deserves more acknowledgment. He’s aware of the “underrated” label but unfazed. “We’re in a market where we don’t get talked about too much, playing in Florida, but I don’t care,” he said. “I know what I’m worth. I know what I can do, and that’s all that matters for me. Obviously, I think I’ve stepped up my game, but I don’t care if I’m the most underrated player. I know I’m a good player, and I know I can make a difference out there.”
Fulfilling his duty like pretty much every Canadian hockey player when asked to sing his own praises, Huberdeau prioritizes the team instead. There’s something to it in this case, however. The Panthers have achieved such strong group chemistry that, in another recent interview with The Hockey News, Zito expressed reticence over making any major trades that might upset the vibes. Huberdeau says 2021-22 is the most fun he’s had as a Panther, that the team operates like a family, that he’s never felt closer to his teammates.
The harmonious atmosphere shows in the standings, too. As of Feb. 16, Florida held the Eastern Conference’s highest points percentage at .734. How dominant were they? Not only was it by far their highest mark in franchise history, but only 21 teams in NHL history have posted a higher points percentage over a full season – out of 1,599 teams total. That puts the Panthers’ current pace in the 98th percentile of every NHL team, ever. Now it makes more sense that Huberdeau would turn the attention toward team goals.
Florida has easily the best team in its 28-season history. Through the all-star break, it averaged an incredible 4.09 goals per game, the most of any NHL team since the 1995-96 Pittsburgh Penguins. The Panthers are a clear Stanley Cup threat. But they must conquer the chore of sharing a division – and, woof, a playoff bracket – with the two-time defending champion Tampa Bay Lightning.
We should know better than to bet against Huberdeau’s crew by now, though. Their improvement in recent seasons, from .524 to .565 to .705 to .734 hockey, has been steady and methodical, just like the improvement in his personal play – and to his car collection. No more Saturns or Civics for Huberdeau now.
He earned his way to a two-year bridge deal on a $3.25-million AAV coming off his entry-level contract and is now five seasons into a six-year contract with a $5.9-million AAV. According to capfriendly.com, his estimated career earnings exceed $36 million. So, yes, he can afford the sexy cars now. Lots of them. Among his favorites: a Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat, a Cadillac Escalade and a Tesla.
But Huberdeau’s most cherished automobile symbolizes everything he has accomplished to date: the Ferrari. It personifies loud, flashy success. It’s everything Huberdeau wasn’t for so much of his career, but it’s what he’s becoming. He’s a superstar now, and he can’t hide from that, even if he still feels like a 1999 Saturn on the inside.