I will preface this by saying that Gulutzan has at least a half-season to 'blow it'. I think he is as safe as any coach in the NHL right now, and I don't in any way see anything to warrant him getting fired or replaced, even if as a GM I would be very tempted by an available Darryl Sutter right now. In my opinion, he has earned a bit of a longer leash.
With that being said, I do think that quite a lot about Hartley's tenure is revisionist history. Hartley did a few things with this team that I really do wish Gulutzan would be better at as well. Hartley I felt made the team function better consistently. Kind of like how Darryl did with the Flames. I also think that his system was absolutely perfect for the Flames at the time.
Look at the rosters that Hartley worked with, including goaltending. It was tough. Look at the defence. Giordano and Brodie really emerged as high-end defencemen under his tutelage. He had Russell and Wideman playing absolutely lights-out for a while too. He got great production from an essentially rebuilding squad. People really forget what he had to work with.
I still argue that Hartley should have been given another chance. His possession numbers were in large measure due to the rosters he had - they were pretty terrible. His devised system was AMAZING for a while, and he did make players accountable defensively. Backlund really emerged as an important cog under him. He forced players to skate back hard and help out on defence, and you must not have been paying attention when a defencemen got a green-light to pinch, but the closest forward didn't rotate back to cover - such an earful was given that nuns in the nosebleeds would have been blushing. He was not some defensively irresponsible coach who just tried to get this team to out-score the opposition. Poorly built teams are naturally going to have poorer possession numbers, no? I mean, they were a brand-new rebuilding team that got a tonne of praise, and he was widely lauded for how much teaching he did on the ice.
He was not the perfect coach. I argue that he didn't deserve to get fired. However, this is no swipe at Gulutzan either. Gulutzan is a much more inexperienced coach than Hartley was, so I think some of his decisions and in-game adjustments are being learned along the way. I don't expect Gulutzan to be at the same level as a tactician to someone like a Darryl Sutter, but he is getting seasoned.
I think for him to get fired mid-season would take a massive losing streak. Something like 10 in a row before Treliving even starts considering it. Probably more like 15 losses out of 20 games. There are definitely things I don't like about Gulutzan - things with his system in particular, or some of his in-game decisions - but he is without a doubt NOT a bad coach.
Either way, it takes a good 20 games to figure out what kind of a team you have, and that includes coaching and systems. People just need to relax after two or three losses, especially losses in which they aren't getting blown-out or getting schooled. What is more telling to me is the adjustments he makes towards the end of the season against the other teams in the Pacific, and especially in the playoffs. Sutter got the most out of all his teams in the playoffs as a coach, as long as they had legs to stand on, and he really did a fantastic job of adjusting to the other team. I am hopeful that Gulutzan builds a few tricks to add to his repertoire as well.
In now way should anyone be screaming for a coaching change right now - not with long stretches of the Flames playing really solid hockey. Last season was understandable - at least to freak out about it - because the Flames went a very long time looking like a hot mess. Gulutzan managed to get that team playing well, and so far into this season, the Flames are playing 'alright', and improving. Why mess with that? He has the rope to get this team solidly pointing the same way.
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