It might be underselling it a bit to say that Jonathan Huberdeau has had a great couple of months.
Off the ice, it’s been an exciting time.
He proposed to his longtime girlfriend Catherine Deslongchamps on Valentine’s Day — she said yes — just a few weeks after they announced that she was pregnant with their first child.
Even if everything on the ice was going terribly for the Calgary Flames forward, those off-ice developments would make it an incredible moment in his life.
Fortunately, things are going pretty well at the rink, too.
“There’s always a new chapter in your life that is starting and I’m pretty excited about (this one),” Huberdeau said. “There’s a lot of things coming for me and it’s been a better year for me on the ice. Her getting pregnant is really exciting, it’s our first one, and then getting engaged …
“I didn’t know when I was going to do it but it was the right time. I surprised her with my family and her family, it was an exciting trip.”
While the couple begins preparations for their wedding, Huberdeau also happens to be in the midst of his best stretch of hockey with the Flames since he was acquired by the team in the summer of 2022.
He’s tied with linemate Nazem Kadri for the team lead in points, with 43, and is on pace to sail past the totals he put up in his first two underwhelming seasons with the Flames, when he put up 55 points in 2022-23 and 52 points last year.
He may not be a 100-point player, but his season totals are actually a little bit misleading.
Since Dec. 1, he’s picked up the pace in a major way and is leading the Flames with 29 points — 14 goals and 15 assists — in 32 games over that stretch. That’s nearly a point a game, and he’s managed four game-winning goals in that period, too.
That’s more than he managed in the entirety of his first two years in Calgary. He scored only one game-winner in 22-23 and two in 23-24.
This season, his total is five game-winners. Only 18 players in the entire NHL have scored six or more.
“Now, I think you’re seeing from him, whether it’s the offensive swagger or whatever you want to call it, that’s back,” Flames head coach Ryan Huska said in January. “He’s made himself a really good 200-foot player what we rely on in every situation.”
Twice in the two games since the 4 Nations Face-Off break, those situations have included big moments late in games.
With the game tied in the third period against the San Jose Sharks on Sunday, it was Huberdeau who dug a rebound out in front and fed the puck to Joel Hanley, who fired in the goal that put the Flames up 3-2 to secure the win.
Then, on Tuesday night against the powerhouse Capitals in Washington, Huberdeau came up big again. Shortly after Alex Ovechkin had scored to pull the Capitals to within one of the Flames, Kadri fed Huberdeau at the side of the net and he buried a goal that restored the team’s cushion and killed off any Capitals momentum.
It wasn’t a game-winner, but it sealed the deal for the Flames and got them off to an encouraging start on their gruelling, potentially season-defining road trip that will next have them take on the Lightning on Thursday night.
So for Huberdeau, he’s playing well, he’s engaged and there’s a baby on the way, too.
Life’s pretty good right now.
“I think when you have a kid it obviously changes your life, but in a good way,” Huberdeau said with a smile. “I’m pretty excited for it. Even with my buddies, there’s two pregnancies now. We’re all having kids at the same time so it’s fun, they can grow up together.”