Poll: How satisfied are you with the Flames coaching

[Jiri Hrdina]

This poll was requested by gvitaly to get a sense of satisfaction people have with coaching this season.
You can use any criteria you want.
10 point scale, 1 is not satisfied at all, 10 is extremely satisfied.

[Locke]

I must honestly say that I have trouble with this.

Huska can only make bricks with the clay he is given. I havent seen any glaring errors that hit the emergency button, but at the same time...he's not making Gold out of Lead.

[ForeverFlameFan]

5/6, went with 5.

[Macindoc]

PK coaching: great

Goaltending coaching: great

PP coaching: abysmal (yes, working with limited talent, but system is too static and 100% predictable, leading to an abysmal success rate and far too many 10 bell chances against)

Player deployment 5 on 5: meh (too much focus on old-school grinders and muckers on the 4th line rather than giving young players sheltered minutes and taking advantage of their speed and energy, although this is also on management)

OT: highly questionable player deployment

Overall score: 6

[Caged Great]

I for one am extremely satisfied with the job he is doing. He has made this team give as good of an effort as they possibly can. It’s not his fault that the most talented offensive forward is a 19 year old kid with 1/4 a season under his belt. There are AHL teams with a better top 6 than the Flames. It’s impossible.

That said, his work with young players once they earn a spot has been excellent. Bahl has really become a good top 4 defenseman, Kuznetsov and Brz too. Klapka has really emerged as a top tier energy guy. Just have to wait a bit for more guys to push their way up.

[#-3]

I'm skewing fairly high at the moment, First I think we need consistency and there is just no reason to change, the young players have to know the coaches are in charge, and sword hovering over their heads all year doesn't do that.

2nd, I give them a ton of credit and good will from last year, and this year I think it has taken longer to fall into the system, but I think this team is still frequently playing above it's level (at least the depth is, maybe a little less so for Kadri, Hubby and Weegar this year, but I wouldn't call that coaching).

[TrentCrimmIndependent]

Pretty sure my thoughts would hurt the feelings of the local Huska/Flames apologists.

I'm not falling for this trap lol.

But yeah, between about a 3 and 5.

[cam_calderon]

Voted 8.

He has a difficult job, the prime aspect of which, to my mind, is to nurture the club's brightest talents so they can be part of the solution in a few years time. If he continues to deploy Gridin and Parekh properly, and doesn't stifle them too much, I'll be very happy.

[TrentCrimmIndependent]

F it

I think the only thing the current system and coaching style is conducive towards is the development of the young d-men not named Parekh, but then again they're not even playing Bruz lately so what's the point.

It also worked alright for Honzek's development when he was healthy because of the role he's being raised into I suppose.

But the muzzling of skill players has been terrible and the tight structure and short leashes on any one with potential has created not only a worse product to watch but has kept them from bottoming out as well as they could be this year, as while it's like pulling nails to watch, it keeps them in games.

You don't have to play outright pond hockey like the Oilers without the skill, but for god's sake, give them some room to spread their wings.

Scratching young players intermittently while not holding vets to the same standard is my least favorite part of the coaching by far. You can't even call it meritocracy because it only goes one way.

In-game deployment has been slightly better since the Flames veered out of it, but for the bulk of the year the decisions late in games and OT have been Atrocious. No one pays what it costs to attend games here to watch Backlund and the slower, less skilled players in overtime. You're playing to score next at that stage, not to protect anything - jfc.

Kerins should be up full time in a depth role out of due diligence to make sure you don't have an NHLer there (you could say the same for Hunt with his exceptional performance this year) and Kuznetsov should never have been sent down to begin with (and potentially being claimed). That was poor evaluation in favor of placeholder-caliber player like Bean and Miromanov to start the year. Maybe that's all Conroy, but it's likely decisions were made off of Huska's input.

Dressing a pure energy 4th line in this day and age is ancient thinking. You can put skill on your fourth line. Why they think they're restricted to 3 lines is beyond me and a poor excuse to keep the Kerins and Stromgrens down without a proper look. Poor guys are probably mentally defeated at this point.

These cups of coffee for the AHL call ups where they're limited to a paltry 6-10 minutes of TOI have been insulting to the players that earned them. In such limited viewings a player cannot showcase themselves nor grow or learn in real time because it's so heavily sheltered. It also messes with confidence (as we heard from Parekh first hand). Hate it.

If we draft a true blue chip prospect like Stenberg or McKenna I'd be wary of having Huska get his claws into them unless he adjusts his approach from what he employed this year to something more youth and skill-friendly.

I'm glad we hired Huska over Love (thank #### for that), but based on the body of work I don't like him for this particular job.

And giving slightly more ice time to Parekh and Gridin last game doesn't erase the coaching style that has skewed more towards leaning on veterans and playing an offensively restrictive system to (I assume) try to fulfill the mandate of squeaking into the playoffs rather than focusing on transitioning to the next core of players and giving them prime opportunities to make mistakes and grow into the roles we ultimately need them to occupy for the foreseeable future.

And all of that doesn't even factor in how the power play has been run this year, where we somehow downgraded from Marc Savard... all I can say is, wow.

[gvitaly]

I went with 4, and it was between 4 and 5 for me. For me it mostly comes down to the Flames playing a lot slower than what I remember under Sutter. They still work hard, but the creativity and pace are not there.

PP - 1
PK - 10
5v5 Offense - 1
5v5 Defense - 7
Team speed - 2
Effort - 7
Lineup decisions - 5
Placing prospects in a position to succeed - 8

That averages to about 5, so I guess I was a bit harsh in voting 4. I definitely don't hate Huska or the coaching staff, but I'm also not sure that they're the best to maximize the development of the current roster. The coaching staff seems to put players in the right spots to succeed, but there were several setbacks this season which make me doubt them.

[Sandman]

Once Huska gets some game-breaking talent to work with, nobody will question his coaching. We made it to 96 points last season, when everybody had us in the basement.

[TrentCrimmIndependent]

Depends on if you're evaluating him strictly for results, or for how he's transitioning a rebuilding team into the future.

Since it became evident that we weren't competing for playoffs this year early on, I've been evaluating through the lens of the latter.

It probably goes without saying, the grade last year would be very different from this year. But I still think last year rode a lot on Wolf & Vladar's second half.

[gvitaly]

Originally Posted by Sandman

Once Huska gets some game-breaking talent to work with, nobody will question his coaching. We made it to 96 points last season, when everybody had us in the basement.

You're right, I had them as a bottom 5 team heading into last season. Though, how much of that success was due to Wolf/Vladar having a great season, and a miracle 5-0-1 start?

If I had to pick a speciality for Huska, then it would be getting the most out of his D-men. IMO, Bahl, Hanley and even Whitecloud all improved under Huska, meanwhile all of Andersson, Weegar, and Hanifin, had career years at different points. Kuznetsov, and Brzustewicz look like they're progressing nicely, and Parekh remains a wildcard, but he's only 19.

[TrentCrimmIndependent]

A former D coach who sold his superiors on a new defense system getting the most out of his defensemen since he stepped in is the probably the most logical thing about it. And he's done very well with the D they brought in as well as the youngsters who've come up this year.

But by the same token, entrusting him with our elite future offensive talents to respect the gifts they bring and provide them with the lanes to maximize that potential on the offensive side is something that should should at least give pause. Can he be that guy? I'm not sure based on what we've seen.

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by TrentCrimmIndependent

But by the same token, entrusting him with our elite future offensive talents to respect the gifts they bring and provide them with the lanes to maximize that potential on the offensive side is something that should should at least give pause. Can he be that guy? I'm not sure based on what we've seen.

I’m still waiting to see any elite offensive talent on the team since Huska’s been coach. Gridin might be, but the jury is still out both on him as a player and on Huska’s handling of him. Hard to assess based on how he coaches a team full of grinders and pluggers (plus one former star who fell off a cliff while Sutter was still here).

[Ryan Coke]

Overall I think he’s been excellent in spite of the talent level on the team.

I was starting to question his commitment to developing younger players as the season was slipping away, but I’ve noticed a real shift in his lineup choices and deployment in the last little while.

My speculation is that his job was to do everything possible to win games, however once management accepted that this year was a draft high/development/rebiggle season, I bet Conroy and Huska had a talk about overall goals. Since developing younger players players became the primary focus over short term success, he has pivoted and been ensuring guys like Bruz, Parekh, and Gridin are not only in the lineup, but getting important minutes.

[dissentowner]

If Gilbert had not chased Savard out of town Huska is easily the worst coach this franchise has ever employed.

[SuperMatt18]

Overall it's just a general "meh" from me, so I rated him a 5.

He has them working hard and committed to a system, don't love the ultra safe way he plays, but get why he's preaching that.

Overall his coaching of the defenders is generally good, and don't mind his defensive utilization.

His forward utilization is generally terrible, hate how little leash guys like Kerins and Stromgren have gotten this year when called up, hate how he deploys the 4th line with veterans instead of using it as a tool to introduce younger players.

[SuperMatt18]

Originally Posted by dissentowner

If Gilbert had not chased Savard out of town Huska is easily the worst coach this franchise has ever employed.

That's not true.

Jim Playfair, Brent Sutter, Glen Gulutzan, Geoff Ward all did less with more talented teams.

And that's just in the salary cap era.

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by TrentCrimmIndependent

Pretty sure my thoughts would hurt the feelings of the local Huska/Flames apologists.

I'm not falling for this trap lol.

But yeah, between about a 3 and 5.

Pretty weak sauce response.

People can have a different opinion than you and not be labeled apologists. It's such a close minded tell.