Florida Locks Up Huberdeau

The new deal for Jonathan Huberdeau was teased earlier in the week, as players finished arriving in their NHL cities, as Huberdeau was one of a couple of high profile restricted free agents, still without a deal.  Huberdeau was the centre of much speculation, which had the thought of offer sheets kicking around on Tuesday, but none were to materialize.

As players go through their initial camp testing today in most cities, Huberdeau was welcomed back into the Panthers fold, signing a 2-year bridge deal, which will pay him a total of $6.5 million, a $3.25 million cap hit.  This could work out to being one of the bigger bargains in the NHL this season.

Last season, his third in the NHL, Huberdeau finished the year with 15 goals and 54 points in 79 games with the Panthers, finishing 2nd on the team in pool scoring, only behind the team's number one goalie, Roberto Luongo.

The 22-year old forward is decidedly on the correct trend upwards in his career, as says a lot of the publications that give us the pool numbers.  The Sports Forecaster has Huberdeau topping out at 74 points, the highest of the four magazines, while Sportsnet has him possibly maxing out at 65 points.  Nevertheless, he's in for some gains and that should improve his draft status.

Personally, the offense in Florida is on the correct trend upward, but the sophomore season of Aaron Ekblad will be the tipping point for this team and it will either temper or accelerate the gains across the board.  Ekblad is now the pivot point of this offense and if he avoids the slump, this team will score well this year.