In the summer of 2017, then Florida Panthers general manager Dale Tallon signed a 24-year-old Jonathan Huberdeau to a six-year, $35.4 million contract, making him a Panther “for the foreseeable future.” Huberdeau had just completed a two-year extension that paid him an average salary of $3.25 million and had been a Cat for five seasons. He was coming off a shortened year, limited to just 31 games, after suffering a gruesome Achilles injury in the preseason.
Now, in the fifth of those six contract years, the “foreseeable future” is no longer a distant dot on the horizon, but a rapidly approaching end point that looms larger for now general manager Bill Zito with each game passed and point collected this season.