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‘It’s just a matter of when, not if’: Craig Conroy on Jonathan Huberdeau’s injury return timeline

Photo credit: Sergei Belski-Imagn Images

By Ryan Pike

Sep 4, 2026, 16:00 EDTUpdated: Sep 4, 2026, 15:08 EDT

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Earlier this week, Calgary Flames general manager Craig Conroy chatted with QR Calgary’s Jock Wilson, and part of their conversation might have caused some worries about the status of Flames forward Jonathan Huberdeau’s return from hip surgery.

Well, Sportsnet’s Eric Francis had a chance to get a few updates from Conroy in his latest column, and povided a bit more context on Huberdeau’s status than Conroy was able to provide over the airwaves.

On QR Calgary, Conroy used the term “a little bit of a setback” in his update on Huberdeau’s potential availability for the beginning of the regular season. Conroy expanded a bit to Francis about what he meant.

“It was a poor choice of words on my part,” Conroy told Sportsnet.ca.
“It’s not that there was a setback. It was more the hope in me that he was going to be ready for camp. What I meant was it was a setback that he won’t probably be ready for the first day of camp. That’s where I made my mistake.
“There’s an appropriate timeline for this, between seven and nine months, and obviously we were hoping for the earliest return possible. But everybody is different.”

Conroy noted later on in the piece regarding Huberdeau’s return to action: “We believe that it’s just a matter of when, not if.”

(There’s a whole bunch of other interesting tidbits in Francis’ piece, go check it out on the Sportsnet site!)

Huberdeau was originally acquired by the Flames in a mammoth trade with the Florida Panthers in July 2022 that sent Huberdeau, MacKenzie Weegar, Cole Schwindt and a first-round pick (used to select Cullen Potter) in exchange for Matthew Tkachuk and a fourth-round pick. Coming off a 115 point season that saw him set the single-season assists record for a left-winger, Huberdeau signed a hefty eight year, $84 million deal with the Flames – the largest deal in franchise history – before he ever hit the ice.

But since joining the Flames, Huberdeau hasn’t enjoyed the same lofty scoring outputs that he did in South Florida. He posted seasons of 55, 52 and 62 points in his first three seasons, with his largest output coming after he really re-worked his game and focused on two-way fundamentals – including joining the penalty kill. But last season, a lingering hip issue got worse and worse, limiting him to just 25 points over 50 games before he was shut down prior to the Olympics. He underwent hip resurfacing surgery in March, a pretty major procedure, but one that would hopefully improve his quality of life on and off the ice.

We’ll have more updates on Huberdeau’s return to the Flames lineup as it unfolds.