Some thoughts about Hartley and the job done this year. As with anything, it's always hard to assign praise or blame to just one element or person. Any success or failures a team has can clearly be shared across multiple people, but it has to be fair to say that Hartley clearly has a fairly strong influence over the goings on with this club this year.
What has gone well?
1. The compete and effort level of this team - clearly there is a pride and an attempt to create the right culture in the room, despite being a team that has lost more than they've won.
2. They play an entertaining style (partially due to #1)
3. Despite this being the worst season in Flames history (more on that below), I'd say they exceded the mind you very low expectations of where they'd finish.
4. Most Importantly IMO, most of our "pre prime" players have gotten better this year:
- Monahan
- Colborne
- Backlund
- Byron
- Brodie
- Russel
- Bouma
What hasn't gone well:
1. Sven seemingly did not take a step forward this year.
But when you look at the list, a lot more positives than negatives, which makes this a successful year for the coach IMO, and he should be praised.
It's very interesting to me that I feel so positively about this season, when it is truly going to be the worst in franchise history, but when I read what I've wrote above, I feel justified in feeling it's been a good year. Never will we have finished as low in the standings in comparison to the other teams as we will this year (which is all that matters, you can't compare point totals across decades, doesn't work), and we are doing so in an era where we have cap certainty and dollars to spend (unlike the young guns era), which makes it even worse that we are this bad.
Yet somehow, I'm more satisfied with this season that I have been with any in the past 4 years, and I think a lot of that credit needs to go to the coach.
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