Quote:
Originally Posted by saillias
Exactly this. A big picture take says he's been an unsuccessful coach here.
Not much heat has been put his way for years 1 and 2, because there were a lot of other guys above him (Feaster, Weisbrod, Ken King) taking the heat for bad Flames teams. But he took a group that was about a 9th-11th place team for 3 years and took them to the basement for 2 years, netting us our highest draft pick in franchise history.
The whole fanbase bought in to the "the roster is putrid". I dunno, it was just sort of mediocre under reviled former coach Brent Sutter. How did it become that much worse under Hartley when adding Hudler, Wideman?
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His first year he had Backlund and Stajan as a number one centre choices. That's tough right there. His forwards were mediocre at best. Defensively he had Jaybo on the top pairing. Wideman had a bad year, leaving Gio as the only decent veteran defenceman (Brodie was up and coming). he had to play Chruis Butler full time. Then you have Mikka posting a 3.44 and .882 save %.
His depth was atrocious - Jackman, Cervenka, Begin, Sven, Comeau, etc.