Quote:
Originally Posted by GranteedEV
I think that's an excuse.
The problem with Gulutzan wasn't that he was cheap, it was that he had never shown anything at any level that indicted a destiny as an NHL head coach, outside of a presentation he gave at a coach's conference. That was the same offseason the Avs hired Jared Bednar just a month later - after Bednar led Cleveland to the Calder Cup.
Bill Peters wasn't exactly cheap either, Treliving recruited him from another organization. The biggest issue was that as soon as Peters got here, someone asked him whether Sam Bennett would be an important piece, and he defaulted to "we're still trying to figure out if he is a winger or a centre" - that was a failing on Treliving's part as the direction should have been abundabtly clear that Sam Bennett was a center, and the team would accept any growing pains. Instead Peters played Bennett on a line with Mark Jankowski for his entire tenure, and even did the same to Lindholm. A lineup of
Tkachuk - Bennett - RW
Gaudreau - Lindholm - RW
X - Backlund - X
Mangiapane - Ryan - Hathaway
could have been the foundation for something great... but Treliving didn't move the pieces that never fit out for pieces that could have. Instead he allowed Peters to square-peg the pieces he had by never providing a clear direction.
Geoff Ward had no business being re-upped. He was a regular season disaster as interim coach that only made the play-ins due to COVID. The 8 seed Flames beat the 9 seed Jets and then got stomped by the Stars in the first round of the actual playoffs, including Ward's mishandling of the goalie situation. It was a perfectly valid reason to see what was available, and it never needed to be Darryl Sutter or a veteran coach. It needed to be someone that showed an organic growth at the AHL level as a head coach, with attention to detail from an X's and O's perspective. Ward was a good assistant, but Treliving got indulgent in promoting someone internally. Even Ward's AHL history was a mirage... fools-gold as that team's actual AHL coach had, IIRC, been promoted to the NHL.
Less expensive coaches were not the primary issue.
Unaccomplished-at-lower-leveld coaches and poor direction on roster usage were.
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Sam Bennett was also a very frustrating and inconsistent player here.
Yeah it sucks he never found his game here, but he needs to share some of the blame he never really took the chances he received and ran with it. He looked good in spurts but never put it together.
Maybe if we don't hire Glen and give the team the right coach to develop the players things would be different.
With all the Sutter bashing I have done he would have been probably the perfect coach for that group, and he would have had no Lucic to keep plugging in he would have had to run with those young guys and probably got the best out of them for a few years.