Typical Francis contrarian fluff article. As mentioned above you can argue just getting Peters out of the dressing room removed the dark cloud over the team as a group of talented unshackled players are simply going play better. Now I do believe Ward deserves some credit for some of the improvement but the reality is that there was nowhere to go but up and even Gulutzan could have steered the team to an improved record. It's just really hard to ignore some of his bonehead lineup decisions, terrible in game decisions, and maybe the worst managing of netminders I have seen since Craig MacTavish. In a way settling for Geoff Ward is such a Calgary Flames and Brad Treliving move that fans probably shouldn't be surprised if it happens. There's an unprecedented amount of legit top tier NHL coaches available for hire and I am holding out hope for this organization to man up and finally start making the right decisions, not the convenient ones.
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