Quote:
Originally Posted by DOOM
Really? That's a odd statement to make when the Oilers/Sabres and Panthers were the only teams to finish ahead of the Flames.
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You do remember that the Flames lost both their franchise forward and goaltender prior to last season in addition to other vets and were projected to finish dead last by many experts? Yet they finished closer to 8th place than to 30th. Sure, you can blame that on the Sabres, but they still finished closer to 22nd than to 28th and were in 49 one goal games for a reason. Hartley made them buy in and created a hard-working, never-give-up mentality and that is so much more important than "only" finishing in 27th place in year 1 of the rebuild. The organization will reap the rewards for Hartleys groundwork in a couple years. He deserves to stay on.
History is repeating itself - Burke went from "the new GM will pick the coach" to "Hartley is going nowhere" pretty quickly. Seems like the process has been the same for Treliving.