[Fighting Banana Slug]

Originally Posted by GullFoss

100% agreed. No argument there. This is exactly how I understood it. Backlund wants to win. There was an issue that got in the way of winning. If the problem wasn't solved, Backlund felt the team couldn't win and thus Backlund would leave to go somewhere where he could win.

But the problem was some of the players AND Sutter. The problem wasn't just Sutter. Elliot Friedman has implied this at least three times in different podcasts - multiple players on the Flames felt the problem was both Sutter and the players who hated Sutter.

So Sutter is gone, but the players remain. Is the problem solved? Maybe. Maybe not.



I don't think its a stretch to say that Huby couldn't adjust his game while still being a point-per-game player. Sutter and Huby didn't mesh. It wasn't going to happen. The coach couldn't adjust. The player couldn't adjust. He's your franchise forward eating up 10%-13% of the cap for eight years and you need him to be effective to have team success. He's untradable. Add Kadri to that and it's 20% of the cap between two players.

In that situation, the players are going to stay and the coach is going to go. And you have to bring in a new coach who can hopefully get more out of your assets. Even if Sutter was super supportive, super positive, pooped rainbows, etc, he'd be gone if his system didn't mesh with the franchise players and neither were able to adapt. You need coaches and players to mesh.



It's not a conspiracy theory and I don't want it come across that way. Sutter contributed to a negative environment. Multiple players had issues with Sutter. Corroborated by multiple people in the organization. Let's say that's all true and Maloney is being honest in his understanding and characterization of that.

All the above can be true and still have had an immaterial net impact on team success. Even if Sutter was super negative and uncompromising, the fault of missing the playoffs might still be mostly attributable to poor team construction and poor performance of specific roster players. It's not either/or. And Maloney is going to be biased against seeing that possibility because they were directly responsible for team construction (along with Tre) and they believe in that team construction.

It isn’t an either or situation, but to suggest the Sutter conduct had an immaterial net impact is utterly implausible. It would imply that coaching just doesn’t matter. I don’t think that is true, and I think we need to take the reporting at face value: there was a toxic atmosphere surrounding the Flames. I lay that largely on the HC.