[SuperMatt18]

And there is a chicken and egg thing with coaching too.

Flames clearly haven’t really had a top end, elite coach here since D.Sutter. Hartley is the closest but he’s a short self life kind of guy. But those coaches commanded respect.

Neither Gulutzan or Ward command respect. So if you have a coach who you think is telling you to do stupid things, or has you playing a system that makes no sense for your personnel then it becomes easier to zone that coach out, especially if you don’t really respect him.

That’s what I feel like is probably happening with Ward.

He has them playing “safe” hockey. Dump it in, take no risks, don’t try to make a risky play, don’t step up at your own blueline, don’t try to beat a dman at their blueline, collapse in front of your own net in the defensive zone.

If you make your team play a system that a low skilled lottery team usually plays just to keep things close then you’re going to end up getting the results of a low skilled lottery team, no matter how much skill you have.

Actually you probably will end up worse because the team won’t work as hard as the low skilled lottery team would within that system.

Then if you stack on top of it that the coach himself never seems to take accountability, and always puts the blame on the players, then you have a bad recipe.