I've been a strong critic of Gulutzen's since early on in his tenure, and made many long posts detailing my issues last season. However, I never actually called for him to be fired until Julien came available; a seasoned coach with a history of winning. Lo and behold, Julien has the Habs off to an even worse start than the Flames. So WTF do I know
?
Coaching seems to be one of those mercurial things, where it's incredibly hard for professionals, let alone casual fans, to know how a coach will work for a team, or even how much credit to give them when a team is winning / blame to put on them when the team is losing.
My personal eyeball test has rarely liked the way the Flames have played under Gulutzen, and outside of a few partial games I don't like the way they're playing now. And some line-up decisions and ice-time allocations boggle my mind. But how much of the team's struggles are coaching vs. roster problems vs. player problems. . . . I really don't know.
Something needs to change, though. Gulutzen has gone to the whip 3 times already this season (including preseason) and the players haven't responded. No reason to think that the status quo will magically right itself.