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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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I chalk it up to hiring a GM who lacked experience, GG seemed in over his head and Peters I thought did a good job but may have lost the team at some point. Not sure Ward was the right choice, he also lacked experience and struggled to motivate the team. Sutter is the only coach so far that has emphasized the importance of experience, not just with coaches but also with young players. It only takes one player with a lack of experience to lose the game, Sutter recognizes this and has ramped up expectations and attention to detail. Before Sutter the team didn't seem to have an identity, it was hard to tell from night to night what type of team we were. Were we hard-working, fast, big? We seemed to be a little bit of everything.
Under the previous coaches and some success, we seemed inconsistent and the team often dictated how they wanted to play. Certain players taking nights off, the first line would show up but not the second line. Sometimes it was certain players mailing it in with poor efforts and coaches giving ice time to players like "Lazy Neal" and repeatedly sticking with Troy Brouwer on the Brouwer-play even when it wasn't working.
Much is on the players but lack of experience can creates its own challenges.
I think Sutter is a good choice because he seems willing to adapt and the emphasis is on winning games and not experimenting with certain ideas that might not be working.