I thought bringing in Sutter for a season or two made sense, a solid coach and a Calgary hockey god. I thought the extension was silly and dangerous, given his tenure at other destinations - how things finished for him in LA should have been a serious warning bell here.
It was as though he became one of his characters... lost his sense of humor and was trying to out-bluster the media, taking the "smartest guy in the room" approach quite seriously.
One of my favorite Darryl moments from years ago, like around the 04 run, was after a game where the Flames lost, and a media guy asked Darryl what the Flames did wrong and he said "Geez I thought we played great, we just didn't win." and I didn't see that kind of humor or positivity out of him this time, not with the media anyway. It was all gruff and squinty-eyed frustration this time around.
Remember that Johnny nearly left when Hartley was here - I think Hartley's removal and Johnny's then re-signing were directly connected, and I think something similar occurred here last year, Lindholm, Backlund, Kadri, Huberdeau, Toffoli... nobody was having fun (Tkachuk, Gaudreau skipped it cuz they could).
So yeah, there's pieces to pick up, hopefully Huska can find some fun and some wins and get the thing on track.
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