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Originally Posted by Flames Draft Watcher
Well last year was a bit of a different case as they lost several of their best players after the lockout ended. Then we got a huge rash of injuries which depleted both Calgary and Abbottsford. Ward was kind of handcuffed last year by all the injuries in the organization. The farm team is affected by players getting injured in the NHL which leads to them losing their best players but also the injuries at the AHL level. So they got double hit last year
I guess we'll see how this season ends up for them. I'd expect that we trade a lot of people at the trade deadline and thus we'll be making a lot of recalls at that time. I'd expect the Heat will probably look worse after we steal their best 3-4 players. Pretty standard.
I've been impressed by Ward's work this year and last. Burke has mentioned that he likes what both Ward and Hartley have been doing.
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Other teams in the AHL faced the same problems, that's what being the top minor league team is about. This is Ward's third year as head coach and IIRC both years have followed the same pattern, fast start and lousy finish. This year is going the same way before we have raided the Heat, so we'll see what happens but I'm not impressed. Certainly not enough to replace Hartley with Ward.