Calgary Flames Coach Ranking - #4

[Bingo]

1. Darryl Sutter
2. Bob Johnson
3. Terry Crisp

[Bingo]

I went with Dave King.

His teams were well coached and competitive, with some of the worst playoff bounces in team history. Losing three straight games to Vancouver, the game seven loss to San Jose despite out shooting them something like 50-20.

A better hand dealt in either of those years would likely have given Calgary a run like 86 or 04

[looooob]

Playoff rounds won
Al MacNeil 2
The Field 1


also has a Stanley cup in his resume and a near lifetime of service to the Flaming C


at this point I have no clue what the right answer is but that is where my vote is going

[FanIn80]

Would be interesting to see what Brian Sutter could have done back then with the talent we have today... I still feel like he was a better coach than what his stats portray. The "Young Guns" era was most definitely our darkest timeline.

Having said all that, I went with Hartley. Not going to lie, I still have a soft spot from his early-2000s Avs teams, which is absolutely impacting my decision.

[SuperMatt18]

The rest of these coaches aren't great.

But since 1989 only two coaches for this organization have won a playoff round.

- Darryl Sutter
- Bob Hartley

So I'll give the nod to Hartley for that reason alone. Plus that season was one of the most entertaining seasons in Flames history, so that is a plus too.

[Strange Brew]

I like the arguments for Macneil. He had the one good run, but I just don't have much of a perspective of him as a coach.

I really liked King as a coach and he did have some hard luck, particularly with Reichel's inability to capitalize on multiple grade A scoring chances. But his teams also had great talent and fact is, he couldn't win a series.

Hartley did win Coach of the year and caught lightning in a bottle.

I always felt like Brian Sutter got everything possible out of his teams. Would have loved to see what he would have gotten out of a better lineup.

Decided to go with Sutter but coin toss really.

[Strange Brew]

Also interesting there are still three Cup winners on the board so a total of 6 have coached for the Flames in their history. That seems like a lot.

[Jacks]

I voted for the porcupine that got invited to the balloon party

[Fire]

Hartley won the Jack Adams while coaching the Flames so hard not to vote for him here.

[Roof-Daddy]

We got them at the end of their careers and their methods were out dated, but Mike Keenan and Bob Hartley won Championships at literally every level they ever coached, including the Stanley Cup, and combined have roughly 2400 NHL games coached and almost 1200 wins.

Keenan - 1440 NHL games - 0.577 win%
Hartley - 944 NHL games - .568 win%

I go Keenan here and Hartley next.

I can see going Hartley 1st though, since he won a playoff round and also the Jack adams with the Flames

[Roof-Daddy]

Keenan coached in 4 leagues

CHL - Won championship
AHL - Won championship
NHL - Won championship
KHL - Won championship

Hartley coached in 5 leagues

CHL - Won championship
AHL - Won championship
NHL - Won championship
Swiss - Won championship
KHL - lost in the finals

[getbak]

[The Original FFIV]

Holding my nose and voting Hartley. When you have players putting clauses in their no trade clauses that they can’t be traded to a team he coaches, that’s pretty bad. That and the way things went down with Sarich. Tough on players but Jack Adams award tells you he did the best with what he had. Limited shelf life with his approach.

King was right guy at wrong time. More of a development coach than a coach for vets. Sutter and Page were guys that should have had more vets but were stuck teaching kids. Lots of pressure to hire King at the time, but didn’t do much with us or Columbus as HC. Some success as AC in MTL.

[JTech780]

As much as I don't want to, I had to vote Hartley here. Jack Adams winner, actually won a playoff round. He really only had one good season, but that was better than the rest of the coaches on this list.

[boogerz]

Despite his flaws (minimal defensive structure, not practicing the PP, etc.), I actually liked Keenan, but Hartley did as well (arguably better) than him and King with considerably less talent at his disposal

[Cheese]

King was a very good coach for the time. Great x & o guy.

[1991 Canadian]

I have no way of backing this up statistically, but Hartley's teams passed the eye test for me. From my perspective, those Flames teams consistently outchanced the opposition despite being outshot. If nothing else, they were fun to watch. The 2014-2015 series against Vancouver is in my top 3 Flames series. Ferland destroying Canucks. Game 6 comeback. Stajan winner. Salty Jim Hughes. Hartley deserves a lot of credit for getting that team there.

He got particularly skewered in 2015-2016. Ramo, Hiller, Ortio and Backstrom would never play an NHL game again after that year. The Flames had a league worst .911 5v5 save percentage. He never had great goaltending to work with, but I can't remember a year with so many soft goals. I left almost every game that year feeling gaslighted. In my mind, the Flames played better than the opposition most nights but were not getting results.

Conspiracy or not, the Flames (and by extension Hartley) got screwed by the Wideman incident. Up until then, the Flames were consistently getting more powerplays than penalties. The calls against the Flames didn't go up, but some calls against the opposition dropped. I know every fan thinks that refs are biased against their team, but there are some teams/play-styles that deserve a positive penalty differential. The Flames were one of those teams.

[Sylvanfan]

I voted for King, because after the 91-92 debacle of a season, he did come in with a team that was starting to shed it's better players and had them start getting back to playing better hockey. As Bingo notes, the 94 and 95 series losses were a touch unlucky, and if the right bounce somewhere, those teams may have gone on decent runs.

[agulati]

Hartley gets my vote.

Got the most of out of the team when he was here, won a playoff round, won the Jack Adams, and his interviews were always great.

[ForeverFlameFan]

I liked it when Hartley was here. 2015 was one of my favorite years because of him.