- Daily Faceoff’s Mike Gould maps out a Jonathan Huberdeau trade that Calgary cannot make yet
- His $10.5 million cap hit is a big reason a stripped-down Flames roster clears the salary floor
- Read below for where the hip stands five months after surgery
Jonathan Huberdeau is the last man standing in Calgary.
Mike Gould of Daily Faceoff sketched out on Thursday how the Flames could eventually get something back for him, and the short version is that nothing happens for another two or three years. Craig Conroy has shipped out Elias Lindholm, Noah Hanifin, Chris Tanev, Jacob Markstrom, Nazem Kadri, MacKenzie Weegar, Rasmus Andersson and Blake Coleman since taking the GM job in 2023. Huberdeau is still here with five years and a $10.5 million cap hit left.
Keeping him is not sentiment. With that much veteran money gone, Huberdeau’s contract is doing real work getting Calgary to the salary floor, so moving it now would create a problem rather than solve one.
Then there’s the hip. Huberdeau shut down his season in February and had hip resurfacing surgery in early March in New York, performed by Dr. Edwin Su, the same surgeon who operated on Patrick Kane in 2023. He rehabbed in Stamford, Connecticut, and was back on the ice by June.
Take a look at the report on the procedure that ended his year:
Conroy was asked about the recovery at the end of June, right after the draft, and he had talked to Huberdeau a few days earlier.
“He said it feels great in the gym, great doing everything else. Skating is a work in progress, but he’s got a few months still, so he thinks he’ll be 100% ready to go,” Conroy told CalgaryFlames.com. “He said he’s pain-free for the first time in a long time, so that’s a great sign.”
Camp opens Sept. 17 and Huberdeau is expected to be in it. Calgary starts the year Oct. 1 against Seattle in the final season at the Scotiabank Saddledome.
Gould’s case for later is mostly cap math. The ceiling sits at $104 million this season and is projected to reach $123 million by 2028-29, and a 35-year-old Huberdeau with three years left, retained down to $6 or $7 million, is a much easier thing for a contender to say yes to. Toss in a bad contract or two coming back the other way, the way Toronto did in the Dion Phaneuf deal, and Conroy might squeeze a pick or a prospect out of it.
None of that erases the gap between the contract and the player. Huberdeau put up 115 points in Florida in 2021-22, then fell to 55 in his first Calgary season. His best year with the Flames was 28 goals and 62 points in 2024-25, and he managed 10 goals and 25 points in 50 games last season on a bad hip. That deal has been voted the worst in the league three years running.
Overpaid and finished are two different things, though. Huberdeau still cleared 50 percent in both shot share and expected goals at five-on-five last season while playing hurt. Get him back to 50 or 60 points and there’s a market again.
