Huberdeau’s Agent Not Helping With Flames’ Locker Room Tension

After a rocky begin to the 2022-23 season, there had been whispers that there was frustration rising from Calgary Flames gamers in regard to their head coach, Darryl Sutter. Several insiders including both Elliotte Friedman and Frank Seravalli have alluded to it on quite a few events, whereas former gamers have spoken out saying how shortly the reigning Jack Adams Award winner could be tuned out as a consequence of his fixed negativity.

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While the locker room as an entire has been rumored to be souring on Sutter, the one participant specifically who has been introduced up on the subject of frustration is Jonathan Huberdeau. This all began early within the season when Sutter appeared to counsel the reasoning behind his star participant not being on the bench was due to a bathroom break when in actuality he was receiving remedy for a nagging damage. This reportedly didn’t sit properly with Huberdeau, who was stated to have felt disrespected by the scenario.

At that point, many Flames followers didn’t agree with the stories, suggesting it was a fabricated or at the very least exaggerated story. However, because the saying goes, the place there’s smoke, there’s hearth, and after a tweet from Huberdeau’s agent after Thursday evening’s loss to the Detroit Red Wings, it’s arduous to not consider there may be some discontent between Flames gamers and their bench boss.

Allan Walsh Calls Out Sutter

While the Flames have suffered loads of disappointing losses this season, one of many ugliest got here on Thursday evening towards the Red Wings. Though they’re combating for a playoff place, you wouldn’t have recognized it from the dearth of effort proven on the night, as they ended up falling by a 5-2 closing. While the loss itself created some headlines, it was removed from the largest story. Instead, what was most mentioned got here from a tweet from Huberdeau’s agent, Allan Walsh, one wherein he made his ideas on Sutter clear.

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result,” Walsh wrote. “Also, negativity sucks the joy right out of players.”

While it was fairly apparent who he was directing it at already, Walsh made certain to tag the Flames on the finish of the tweet to clear up any potential confusion. He has not elaborated on it additional, although there isn’t an entire lot of cause to, as it’s clear he’s saying Sutter is much too damaging. Again, it’s one thing we’ve got heard from gamers who’ve performed below him prior to now, and is just not a method that works in right now’s sport.

Huberdeau Gives His Thoughts

As you may think about, the main focus of this story shortly turned as to if or not Huberdeau knew, or maybe even requested Walsh to tweet this. The 29-year-old was requested about it at observe on Friday afternoon and denied having any prior knowledge that Walsh was going to ship this tweet out.

“We’re all frustrated,” Huberdeau stated. “We can play better. It (the tweet) doesn’t come from me. It’s my agent. It’s from him, it’s his account. He made that tweet, so that doesn’t reflect on me or on the guys. We all love each other. We’re a close team.

“Darryl’s Darryl. Sometimes you won’t like what the coach [does], and some nights, you’re never 100 per cent happy with the coach and his decisions and stuff like that. Me and Darryl have a great connection, great friendship.”

There is lots to interrupt down right here, as it’s unclear whether or not or not Huberdeau is being truthful in his feedback. While it’s straightforward to say he had full data or maybe even requested Walsh to ship out the tweet, it needs to be remembered {that a} related scenario occurred a number of years prior when Walsh sent out a tweet calling out the Vegas Golden Knights for his or her remedy of one other certainly one of his shoppers in Marc-Andre Fleury. Fleury, much like Huberdeau, stated he had no prior data that it was going to be despatched out.

While Huberdeau could also be truthful in not figuring out it was going to be despatched out, nonetheless, it’s nearly unattainable to think about Walsh would have executed it with out absolutely figuring out the connection between Huberdeau and Sutter isn’t an excellent one. If the participant himself informed his agent that they had an excellent relationship, it could be a really odd scenario for the agent to ship out a tweet on this matter. In reality, it might very properly immediate the participant to change brokers, one thing it doesn’t seem Huberdeau is about to do.

Huberdeau wasn’t the one one to reply, as Sutter was additionally requested concerning the incident. He didn’t have a ton to say about it, and didn’t appear to be involved, as a substitute suggesting that nothing put out on social media impacts what goes on in a dressing room. Clearly, based mostly off of his response, he hasn’t dwelled on it by any means.