[CaptainCrunch]

I really respect Bob Hartley and what he did for this franchise. But at the end of the day the Flames and their management need to ask if last year was some universal positivity theory where everything went right and when combined with a great work ethic lead to a exceptional one off season?

But this year was different.

This team didn't outwork anyone on a lot of night, and on a lot of other nights maybe matched the opponents work ethic. But the peerless relentless efforts that lead to third period dominance were a thing of the past.

while Bob didn't have much to work with, I don't think he handled the goalie situation all that well, and it really cost us the confidence in that position and hurt Ortio's development and confidence.

It just felt like with the exception of a few he didn't like to use young players, bringing guys up and sitting them in the press box is fine if they need to acclimatized and watch the game, but Wotherspoon is a good example of bringing a player up and wasting the airline money.

I tend to think that the term shelf life is a big one. Bob is described as easy to get along with when he's not coaching, and he's a bit of a monster when he is coaching, and those guys create a us versus them environment eventually, I think that happened this year.

I do think that the Superbowl thing was a shot across the bow of Hartley by the future leadership of this team, was it right by the players? Absolutely not, did the team do the right thing in sitting them? Absolutely. But it showed huge disrespect to the coach.

Tactically, his game plan of stretch passes and activitating the defense makes for entertaining hockey, and I still don't buy the advanced stats stuff in terms of defining your teams style of play, we all don't need to play like the Detroit Redwings under Babcock. But the penalty kill and defensive zone coverage were a disaster this year and that goes to coaching vision. We need a new vision.

At the end of the day, the positives for Bob outweighed the negatives. When I look at the Oilers situation, I said that the smart move with a young team is to bring in a teacher for a few years, and then bring in a monumental a$$ kicker, I think the Oilers failed to do that and don't have that today? The Flames need to be really careful in terms of who they bring in. Is BB the guy, it feels like that's who they want.

This is a crucial year in terms of the rebuild, the Flames have to move back into the playoff contention area in the upcoming season, or we are in danger of running into a cap crunch and a player crunch that debilitates this team long term.