It’s crazy how many people want to ascribe some sort of backroom power struggle to this. reporting was that DS was in der consideration in the offseason. Murray Edwards is not a hands on guy with respect to internal decisions. He is hands on with respect to choosing who he thinks is the right guy to handle an operation and the bottom line. I’ve personally overheard him tell Flames management that he didn’t want to be involved in decisions about such things other than he’d approved a budget, and it was theirs to manage.
Did owners call Treliving when the team wasn’t doing well, to see what the plan was? Maybe. Did Treliving ask them what they thought about Sutter, especially whatever his ask was? Certainly since it would have been a new budget item (and they are still paying Ward). Did they direct him to hire Sutter “or else”? Nah.
It’s funny how it’s gone from “the owners are too cheap to hire an experienced coach” to “the owners forced Treliving to hire an experienced coach”. In a year where revenues are flat and a coaching change means zero increased attendance.
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