{"id":822129,"date":"2026-07-24T02:24:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T02:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/822129\/"},"modified":"2026-07-24T02:24:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T02:24:09","slug":"former-panthers-star-jonathan-huberdeau-tops-nhls-worst-contracts-list-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/822129\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Panthers star Jonathan Huberdeau tops NHL&#8217;s worst contracts list again"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"inline-text-0\" class=\"mt-[18px] md:mt-0 mb-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5r\">Annually, The Athletic dissects the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/7453131\/2026\/07\/23\/nhl-worst-contracts-2026-jonathan-huberdeau-leo-carlsson\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">worst deals in the NHL<\/a>, and recently, former Florida Panthers star and current Calgary Flames forward Jonathan Huberdeau maintained his spot at the top. After scoring a franchise-best 115 points in 2021-22, the organization traded him to Alberta in exchange for Matthew Tkachuk, who helped the Panthers win the Stanley Cup in 2024 and 2025. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-1\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5u\">During his first season with the Flames, Huberdeau has struggled even to come close to duplicating the successes he once had in Florida. While Tkachuk helped lead the <a href=\"https:\/\/therattrick.com\/where-are-they-now-revisiting-the-matthew-tkachuk-trade-four-years-later-01kxq737qzq3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Panthers to the 2023 Stanley Cup Final<\/a>, Huberdeau endured a difficult first season in Calgary, scoring just 15 goals and 55 points after posting 30 goals and a franchise-record 115 points the year before. The 60-point drop was one of the steepest single-season declines in recent NHL history.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-2\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5x\">Shortly after acquiring him, the Flames signed Huberdeau to an <a href=\"https:\/\/capwages.com\/players\/jonathan-huberdeau\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">eight-year extension worth $84 million<\/a>. Heading into the 2026-27 season, Huberdeau will be the 27th highest-paid player in the NHL at $10.5 million. Aside from a 29-goal campaign in 2024-25, Huberdeau scored just 10 goals and 25 points in 50 games last season before undergoing hip surgery.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-3\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"60\">Overall, with 613 points in 671 games with the Panthers, Huberdeau produced a .94 points-per-game average. However, since relocating to Canada, his numbers have dropped off significantly to just <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/h\/huberjo01.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">194 points in 294 games<\/a>, equaling a .66 points-per-game average. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-4\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"63\">With the Flames in the middle of a rebuild, Huberdeau&#8217;s $10.5 million cap hit looms large over the organization. As Calgary&#8217;s younger core develops, that contract could make it more difficult to retain emerging talent in the years ahead, since his salary accounts for over 10% of the team&#8217;s cap hit.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-5\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"66\">After topping lists of the NHL&#8217;s worst contracts for three consecutive years, it&#8217;s difficult to envision a trade for the 33-year-old. Still, stranger things have happened, and a fresh start could be Huberdeau&#8217;s best chance to rediscover his game as he enters the latter stages of his career.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"22\" height=\"22\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.minutemediacdn.com\/platform\/google_discover_icon.svg\" class=\"shrink-0\"\/>Add us as a preferred source on Google<a aria-label=\"Follow therattrick.com on Google News\" href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=therattrick.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" class=\"flex h-[30px] w-[30px] shrink-0 items-center justify-center rounded-full bg-primary font-group-large text-sm font-medium text-white transition-colors hover:bg-secondary focus:bg-secondary md:w-auto md:gap-2.5 md:px-4 md:py-[5px]\">Follow<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Annually, The Athletic dissects the worst deals in the NHL, and recently, former Florida Panthers star and current&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":822130,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-822129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/822129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=822129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/822129\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/822130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=822129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=822129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=822129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}