[Calgary4LIfe]

I am happy with Huska - more than I thought I would be - after watching both the press conference and the interview afterwards with Brendan Parker.


This may prove to be a long post, so sorry in advance. It has been a long time since I have made a large post, so just skip this if you don't like (or know) how to read.


I disagree that the Flames have been through too many head coaches thus far. I think the Peters' issue made things seem worse than they were as it was a fairly quick dismissal, followed by a weird season that saw an assistant be promoted in a difficult time (and quite honestly, an assistant that was widely thought of as one of the next 'up and comers', and who turned the Devil's PP around just like Brunette did? Funny!). I am going to do a quick summary of the coaches in Calgary from this 'core' until now, as I see it. I am sure people will disagree with some of my summaries, and that's fine.


Bob Hartley: Fantastic coach. Yes, Fantastic. I will die on this hill. I didn't enjoy his overly passive defensive system relying a lot on shot blocking. I Just don't think he had the talent to implement a better system. However, he was extremely demanding from a defensive point of view, and I swear you can hear him tearing the strip off a player for not getting back in coverage properly (I remember one specifically with Backlund). Offensively he let this team be creative. As long as there was coverage, defencemen were given the green light. This caused a tonne of defensive zone breakdowns. He was a wizard on the 3on3 too. Hartley knew how to get the most out of his team offensively, and he demanded his team to be responsible defensively. Sure sounds a lot like what Conroy wants right now - but I am sure it Huska comes with a better defensive system (that I will guess at later). This team was able to score off the rush. People remember it all just as stretch passes, but it was way more than that. It was creative offensive hockey that caused the other teams to break-down. Until the goalies stopped being able to make routine saves, this was extremely entertaining hockey. Practices were intense and at game speed, and even morning skates on game-days were intense and run similarly to practices. Hartley had his warts, but one thing he was very exceptional at was being a teaching coach - he was lauded by all opposing team's broadcasts when they took in his morning skates for that very reason.



Gulutzan: I can't say I enjoyed much about his tenure here. The Flames were a fast-paced and hard-working team, and it seemed he brought back the Brent Sutter systems. 5 man units, puck possession, shot volume that went nowhere and seemed purposefully designed around maximizing CORSI. The team never really got it right defensively either. It gave up on Hartley's overly passive system with shot-blocking, but there were too many hiccups constantly that never seemingly got it ironed-out. It was something else watching a team that would push the puck up the ice the instant it got the puck on their stick to a system where we would see the defencemen passing it back and forth a few times before starting a transition. It was also incredibly boring to watch.
Practices were 'slow' - not run at game speed.


Peters: I hated the hire when it was made as it SEEMED Peters was a mirror image of what was wrong with Calgary and Carolina - good underlying numbers, but couldn't score. So many stats were so eerily similar. However, he 'won' me over when talking about the transition, and I said right away that Giordano is going to have a monster season. Peters' transition was reminiscent of Hartley's, except now there was even more talent on the team. I also enjoyed the more aggressive defending. However, after that all-star break, the wheels fell off for some inexplicable reason. i am not sure if it was because defensively the Flames became a bit loose, and things were modified somewhat for 'playoff winning hockey', but it seemed to me like "Gulutzan hockey" returned. The transition slowed down. Colorado severely exposed Calgary, and Peters didn't seem able to modify anything to get Johnny away from the 2-1 and even 3-1 coverage. Flames were a fairly fast team, but they were so thoroughly exposed that series. The rest is history. I still don't understand how the wheels fell apart so thoroughly, but that team was never the same under Peters until he got fired for off-ice reasons. He almost seemed like a 'one trick pony' to me? One hell of a good trick at first, but didn't have the knowledge (or perhaps the ability?) to make the required changes in a timely manner? Still blows my mind how different this team was under him - the most Jekyll and Hyde team in recent memory.



Ward: Practices slowed down - not at game speed. I think Ward's biggest problem (and this is 100% me theorizing here with very little in the way of evidence) is that Ward didn't seem to have answers. Those post-game press conferences were downright uncomfortable as it seemed at times that Ward had absolutely no answers or insight at all. Sure, maybe this was just playing dumb to the media, but towards the end of the season, I was struck by that notion listening to those press conferences. The team just seemed like a disjointed mess. Breakouts were poor, there were always poor defensive breakdowns - the team neither looked dangerous or in any way cohesive. They looked substantially slower, and I do believe that practices had a lot to do with this. It was the same with Edmonton during Eakins years where they had slow practices - that team wasn't able to really put together a complete game.


Sutter: We all saw the creativity (or lack thereof) in goal scoring. The top line (the Gaudreau year) was able to fit their creativity within the confines of the system, but that was all. IIRC, even that really good year the other lines were somewhat underwater, and that 'excellence' of the top line, along with Markstrom making some big saves, hid a lot of those warts. Last year, those warts were all exposed. Shot volume with not enough creativity was hard to watch when the team wasn't winning. I also thought that under Sutter, this team would be massively better defensively without so many GRADE A chances going the other way. This team kept giving up those chances (though not as often as I saw under Ward). Too many breakaways, 2-on-1s, too many cross-ice passes, etc. Just too many 'hiccups'. I was convinced that Sutter was going to get those ironed-out, and when he didn't, I became convinced that it was because it was either a culture problem or a personnel problem (or both!). After all, this was Darryl Sutter - a very good coach on the defensive side of things. Yes, the Huberdeau (and Lindholm, Mangiapane, etc) issues offensively was a huge problem, but those defensive breakdowns and the lack of elite-level play by Markstrom really sunk this team. Rittich would have been the better goalie last year in some ways (ok, I don't really believe that either - but there is logic here) because Rittich was good at making those '10 bell saves', but would lose focus and concentration and easy goals would go in. The year we acquired Markstrom, he was the only goalie in the league not to have allowed a single bad goal. Remember that? He just wasn't AS good with the 10 bell saves (especially rebounds). Something definitely affected him last season, and maybe it was a little bit like what Dubynk suffered from in Edmonton - an over correction from facing too many grade A shots since the players in front of him were giving up too much.



Hartley, Peters and Sutter were all coaches with limited shelf-lives. I think Gulutzan and Ward were players coaches, but simply either not as 'brilliant' in their systems and applications, or perhaps had difficulty managing a bench.


After listening to Huska speaking, I am much more confident in the direction he wants this team to head into than I have been with either Gulutzan or Ward. He specifically mentioned Peters' transition (which I do think was very good for 3/4 of the season - absolutely lethal in fact). I like how he identified Sutter's reoccurring defensive breakdowns. IIRC, Hartley used a defensive zone coverage, but one that was passive. Sutter preferred to employ man-to-man coverage. Both of these have their strengths and weaknesses. I just think that offensively, players are just so damn good now. Simple picks can cause too much disruption and breakdowns. I think it is too easy to create a breakdown, but it is easier to pressure the puck carriers. It sounds like Huska is going to employ zone coverage, but keep it aggressive. I really look forward to seeing how it works.


Listening to Huska speak felt as good to listen to as Hartley's presser when he was hired (and I REALLY detested that hire right up until his presser when he described how he wanted Calgary to play, which was night and day better than Brent Sutter's Flames). I disliked the Gulutzan hire, and his press conference didn't impress me at all. I hated the Peters' hire, but loved that presser when he described how important it was to have a fast transition. Ward's hire I was optimistic with, but I don't remember having any positive or negative feelings. Obviously that didn't work out. Sutter's hiring and presser was damn exciting though, but we all know that he comes with shelf life.


I mostly liked Hartley and Sutter as coaches. I think they are both very smart. You can't argue with results - both of them have it. Name another coach that has won in every league he has been? Hartley is a much smarter coach than people give him credit for, but unfortunately, he relies on being too abrasive to get his players to buy-in. I would have loved to see him coach one more year as I do think it would have made a huge difference to Bennett and perhaps some of the other younger players, but I also can't argue that his shelf-life might have simply expired. Sutter's definitely did, and we all witnessed it happening in front of our eyes with so many things going wrong, and obvious decision making and player utilization right until the end, including 'must win games' down the stretch.



Huska to me comes off as extremely intelligent, and a coach that I really agree with. Him speaking about the transition, and figuring out how to plug some holes defensively has me very excited to see this team play. He also seems to come across as not exactly a 'player's coach' - especially the comments from Andersson and Mangiapane. He seems like a coach that is willing to actually teach (iike Hartley), but with better ideas defensively and with more interpersonal ability. I hope that he really learned from his time with Sutter. Yes, those defensive 'hiccups' I do think were huge, but the Flames otherwise played 'air-tight' games. It was air-tight for 55+ minutes of an entire game, with hiccups randomly popping up. I think Sutter's system is incredibly effective, but like anything, it needs to be altered to better suit the personnel and the opposing teams. I hope that Huska is right about what he wants accomplish here.


I also really enjoyed listening to Conroy talking about wanting Huska to be the coach for the next 10+ years. I don't share the notion that the Flames as an organization have had 'too many' coaches, or that coaching has been too unstable. If anything, I think Calgary has been too patient with coaching at times. They just hired too many poor ones. I hope this is a good one, and I 100% agree with wanting to establish a long-term partnership here in Calgary between the GM and the coach. Treliving was never able to achieve that I think. I do think having a long-term coach in Calgary will help to finally establish a culture like they have in Tampa, or even in Boston. Although I do not think that Calgary has necessarily gone through more coaches than average, I also do think that there is great benefit in having stability in management and coaching.


Huska SEEMS like the type of coach you can build that with. I love Hartley (I know I am one of the few here who do), but there is no way you can bring him in as a long-term stable presence. You bring him in to kick-start a rebuild and use his 'teaching' energy to help develop players, or you bring him into a group that is about ready to 'win'. Sutter you bring to a team that is destabilized and needs a quick turnaround, and has the talent to win - he can get that group to win - but he is hardly a long-term solution.



Huska seems strong enough not to allow the inmates to run the asylum, but with enough interpersonal skills to not drive the inmates crazy either. He sure seems smart enough for the job, and seems to understand what it takes to be successful in today's NHL.


I still think that without Lindholm agreeing to an extension, this team is still very much in limbo when it comes to the immediate plans, but that's ok. I do think that Conroy made a good choice. I wasn't too sure, but I really did enjoy listening to what Huska had to say, and I feel much more relieved. I prefer this hire over Love right now. Love may prove to be the better coach later on, but I do agree with Conroy that with Love's lack of experience, we just don't know if he is really ready or not, regardless of how confident Love is. Huska has been learning on the job what is effective and what is not effective, and how to manage a team properly. I really love this hire, even if there is no Love in it.