‘I don’t think he’s calling me for a contract extension…’ Inside Jonathan Huberdeau’s life-changing summer

Jonathan Huberdeau froze.

It was Friday night, July 22. He had just finished a game of beer league hockey with his friends. Yes, NHL superstars like Huberdeau do mortal things in the offseason like play in a league with their best pals. They were hanging out in the parking lot when his phone rang.

‘Bill Zito’ read the caller ID. The GM of the Florida Panthers. On a Friday night. In the summer.

Huberdeau looked at his friends.

“I don’t think he’s calling me for an extension at this time of night,” he said.

Huberdeau reluctantly answered. And his instincts were right. Zito informed him he’d been traded to the Calgary Flames along with defenseman MacKenzie Weegar in a massive blockbuster bringing Matthew Tkachuk to the Panthers, a deal that instantly looked like the biggest of the century on paper, sending a 100-point scorer in either direction.

“I didn’t have any words to say back,” Huberdeau told Daily Faceoff, reminiscing on that life-changing evening.

In the days that followed, Huberdeau did find the words. It helped that he had a longtime teammate in Weegar going with him in the trade. And, one after another, their new Flames teammates began reaching out, obviously excited. An offseason that had started sourly with Johnny Gaudreau’s departure and Tkachuk’s trade request had taken an upbeat turn with some high-impact players replacing them. Huberdeau had tied for second in NHL scoring with Gaudreau at 115 points last season, and Huberdeau’s 85 assists set a single-season league record for left wingers. His arrival was a massive help to a team coming off a 111-point season and hoping to maintain its identity as a top Stanley Cup contender in the Western Conference.

But there was no question the trade would take time for Huberdeau to digest. He admits he had no premonitions about a major change happening this offseason despite the fact he was entering the final year of a contract paying him $5.9 million annually and was due a gargantuan raise. His Panthers had been embarrassed in the second round of the 2022 playoffs, managing just three goals in a four-game sweep loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning, but the Cats had won the Presidents’ Trophy and made great progress year over year. Huberdeau says he felt their inexperience showed against Tampa but that they’d learned a lot and would carry it with them into next season. Instead, the only team he’d ever known traded him away that Friday night in July, and he was completely blindsided.

Drafted third overall by the Panthers in 2011, he’d spent more than a decade with the franchise. He’s the Panthers’ all-time leader in games (671), assists (415) and points (613). And his roots in Florida long predated his time playing NHL hockey there. His parents, Alain and Josee, were snowbirds. They’d take Jonathan, his brother Sebastien and their sister Josiane there on annual RV trips from their home in Saint-Jerome, Quebec. Jonathan would play roller hockey after days at the beach.

“It was my second home,” Huberdeau said. “My family, we used to spend every Christmas, three weeks, since I was a baby. So I was fortunate to play there for 10 years, and I knew the area before, playing there, living there. It just felt like home. A lot of people liked to come visit and obviously the lifestyle was great in Florida. The first two weeks after the trade, you think about all that and are a little sad, but then you think, ‘Life goes on,’ and you have to worry about what’s ahead.”

That’s where Flames GM Brad Treliving came in handy. Earlier this month, he flew out to Montreal to meet his new star left winger for what is now unofficially dubbed ‘The Dinner’ and tell him more about the Flames’ long-term plan, with hopes of eventually locking Huberdeau up with a contract extension. The gesture meant a lot to Huberdeau.

“You want to sign a guy for a lot of years, you haven’t met him, so that was really nice of him to take a plane and come and see me in Montreal and then go right back,” Huberdeau said. “The dinner went well, we got along and I think he wanted to win right now with the moves he made, signing Nazem Kadri. And I think we have a really good team. That excited me. I liked how he wanted to build that team, and that made me want to stay there for a long time.”

Huberdeau knows little about Calgary as a city aside from brief impressions from road trips and the positive feedback he’s heard from other Flames. Yet he was willing to commit to the franchise after that dinner with Treliving, signing a max-term extension at eight years and a $10.5 million AAV. It kicks in starting in 2023-24 and will pay him through his 38^th birthday. How does a player go all-in on a market for that long without knowing what it’ll actually be like to live there? Isn’t that a little risky?

Huberdeau doesn’t see it that way.

“I was like, ‘You know what?’ I didn’t want to go to Calgary and be like, ‘Am I gonna stay there?’ ” he said. “At the end of the day, anywhere I would’ve went, it would’ve been different than in Florida, so I’d rather just go to Calgary and know I’m going to be there for a lot of years and know that’s going to be the next spot for the rest of my career. So that was my mindset. I was excited we got the deal done.”

He’ll rent a house there for now and will do more research before deciding on a neigborhood to buy in. So the Flames have their new franchise player in Huberdeau, the NHL’s fourth-leading scorer over the past four seasons combined, who turned 29 in June and should remain one of most impactful offensive players in the game. But he’ll have some adjustments to make, no doubt, ranging from superficial to significant. For the first time in his pro career, he won’t wear No. 11. That belongs to center Mikael Backlund in Calgary. Instead, Huberdeau will wear No. 10. He chose those digits to pay tribute to one of his heroes, the late legend Guy Lafleur. Huberdeau, who has always been more heralded for his offensive play than his defensive play, will now toil under hardnosed coach and reigning Jack Adams Award winner Darryl Sutter. That’s a major change from the soft-spoken Andrew Brunette. But the biggest shift of all will be going from one of the NHL’s most obscure markets to one of its most passionate.

“Packed house every night, it’s more of a hockey market, and it’s going to be different but it’s going to be fun,” Huberdeau said. “I’m looking forward to it, obviously more media, a little bit more pressure, but I don’t think about this stuff. I’m just going to do my best on the ice, hopefully it goes well, and that’s all I’m thinking of.”

Is he ready?

“Until I live it,” he added with a laugh, “I don’t what to expect, really, so I’ll be able to tell you more in the season.”

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‘I don’t think he’s calling me for a contract extension…’ Inside Jonathan Huberdeau’s life-changing summer

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