Quote:
Originally Posted by TOfan
The key thing to remember about Hartley is the players wanted him gone. Hiring Gulutzan was a failed selection, but I think hiring a young ‘player friendly’ coach for that group at that time wasn’t a terrible idea. When GG lost the room, Treliving went with a firm coach who he had first hand experience and won with. I think many GM’s make their decisions on who to hire based on similar criteria. Some will cast blame (surprising, right?) at the GM for hiring a guy with the the skeletons Peters had in his closet, but who is more responsible for bringing that to light? Treliving, or the two other organizations who knew and kept quite about the transgressions in question. So, not only did Treliving have to go beyond the role of GM and deal with that disaster, which should have been dealt with by a POHO (side note: the Flames don’t have one) he had to hire a top shelf coach too, right?
The players, reportedly, liked Ward and they had turned things around. Then the pandemic hits and no one knows what that means to the team, or the league. The Flames have a respectable showing in the bubble, albeit disappointing finish. Nevertheless, there’s still reason for optimism. The Flames go silent for well over a month. During this time, they’re evaluating their options, and likely speaking to Sutter about his interest in coming back. Given the state of the world at that time, there are many reasons why Sutter may not have wanted to come back at that moment. So, plan B is probably give Ward a shot. They signed him to a two year deal and was likely among the lowest paid coaches in the league. Not a stretch to think they positioned themselves to move on without much difficulty if need be.
I know it’s fashionable and easy to simply say ‘Treliving hired terrible coaches’ but I don’t think that takes into consideration the actual events as they happened. The question shouldn’t be ‘what didn’t work’ it should be why didn’t it work’.
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Hey I’m with ya, if you look at my post history more then a few times I’ve talked about how this team isn’t too far removed from pretty close steps to bigger things and how things unfolded with covid seasons that the performance from our high end group should be taken with a grain of salt (sudden Peters departure right after big season/disappointing playoff, start of first covid season+upset in bubble playoffs, stumble of second covid season and narrow playoff miss) but at the end of the day GM’s are responsible for their decisions and at the time of all the coaching changes there were seemingly a few options available for higher end coaches but also reports that the flames didn’t even reach out to those other candidates and had narrowed in on who they wanted.
I get it too, it’s so easy to point fingers when the going gets tough and hindsight is 20/20 but it’s been incredibly frustrating to see Treliving not learn from past mistakes (not going high end in UFA vs buying expensive mid-tier guys, coach carousel) while watching him hit homeruns in other aspects (certain trades but definitely two way street, RFA’s but again becoming a two way street with Tkachuks contract status.) I think the biggest thing for me is that I was truly excited about this core and it’s disheartening to think that the sum of their success won’t amount to much. It’s still early though, I did like the work ethic and pace last night so hopefully they can put together a good rhythm under Sutter and play a game that’s greater than the sum of their current parts.