Calgary Flames forward Jonathan Huberdeau has landed in the same uncomfortable place again: at the top of another list nobody wants to lead.
Dom Luszczyszyn of The Athletic released his annual ranking of the NHL’s 10 worst contracts, and Huberdeau was named the league’s worst-value deal for the third straight year. That’s a brutal run for a player who still has five seasons left on a contract carrying a $10.5-million cap hit.
The numbers behind the ranking only sharpen the picture. Huberdeau, 33, was limited to 50 games last season and finished with 10 goals and 25 points. Luszczyszyn pointed to that production in explaining why the contract sits so high on the wrong side of the ledger.
“For the third straight season, Jonathan Huberdeau tops our list of the worst contracts in hockey,” Luszczyszyn wrote. “No shock here, but even in a rising cap world it’s difficult to justify $10.5 million for a 33-year-old forward who scored at just a 41-point clip last season.”
When Calgary signed Huberdeau to an eight-year extension after acquiring him from the Florida Panthers, the move looked very different. He had just put together a career year in Florida, posting 30 goals and 115 points in 80 games. Since arriving in Calgary, though, the production has never come close to that level.
In 291 games with the Flames, Huberdeau has 65 goals and 194 points. His best season in Calgary came in 2024-25, when he scored 28 goals and finished with 62 points in 81 games.
The concern for the Flames is that the contract may still be headed in the wrong direction. Huberdeau’s 50-game season was cut short by a lingering hip issue, and he has since had hip resurfacing surgery, a procedure few players have successfully returned from. His recovery is reportedly going well, but there’s no real way to know how he’ll respond until he gets back into game action.
For Calgary, the hope is simple: that Huberdeau can get anywhere close to the player he was in Florida.
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