Well if you're basing your numbers off last year's off the chart production by the Gaudreau-Lindholm-Tkachuk line where they lead the whole league in points by a line... you might be overstating the impact of Sutter's second year with the players. For example, how do you explain Mangiapane and Lindholm's decreased numbers this year under Sutter compared to their numbers last year? Seems like you are just using career years by players in their contract years last season to predict the future success of Huberdeau's second year under Sutter. But hey, you might be right in predicting that Huberdeau's production increases next year.. but at the age of 30 already next year, I can see his production falling or staying the same as this year alot sooner than the last 2 years of his contract as you predicted. I've watched Huberdeau closely this year and I haven't seen anything elite that warrants a 10.5 million contract for 8 years well into his 30's.
I mean you just named 3 players, while I named 8. Every single player saw an increase in goals per game and points per game, with the other half spending almost zero time with that top line. Lindholm went from playing with Gaudreau and Tkachuk to Dube and Toffoli, and he’s only 5 points under point per game after being point per game last year. He’s also just straight up been a point per game player over his last 42 games, and above point per game the last two months. If you think that’s a step down in his personal level of play I don’t know what to tell you.
Same with Mangiapane, his assist numbers are actually up from his previous seasons. The main difference is he shot 16, 19 and 19% again his previous 3 seasons and is shooting 9% this year. Granted he did look visibly worse to start the year out this season while separated from Backlund for the first time in a while, but he’s been looking pretty fantastic again since being reunited.
Same things could’ve been said for Gaudreau during his down years. He had 2 years in a row where he averaged a sub 70 point pace over that span, looked a lot less dynamic, and plenty of non-Flames fans and media said that’s probably just the kind of player he is now. Sutter was hired, and he still only had 24 points in his first 30 games under Sutter (65 point pace). Then he exploded the following season. Also Huberdeau’s playmaking his is claim to fame more than anything else. That kind of player tends to age extremely well. Helps his case being a late bloomer as well.
