Calgary Flames Coach Ranking #1

[Bingo]

Some preamble.

Do we vote this down to last place or determine a top 5? Top 10?

I'll put up all coaches, they are ranked by total games coached (regular season + playoffs).

Spooky to see how close the three Sutter brothers are in games coached ... 246, 246, 243

[Roof-Daddy]

I think the list will be pretty gross after the top 5, can probably stop at that point.

[agulati]

I’d actually like to see ranking the whole list, to see how the discussion progresses for later rounds.

[Bingo]

I went Darryl Sutter.

Bob Johnson was my assumption coming in, but then the team's that Johnson coached when on to win a cup without him. He was huge in building up the team, getting them able to beat Edmonton, and he's my favourite coach.

But best coach? Darryl Sutter took a lunch bucket team to the Stanley Cup Final. The second he removed himself form behind the bench the team lost their drive. He was the face of the franchise.

[lazypucker]

Bingo - you should do a reverse poll starting from the worst coach for the Flames. It will be more fun that way...

[agulati]

Easy vote for me in the first round. Has to be Darryl Sutter as the best coach in Flames history.

[Lanny_McDonald]

Bob Johnson. He came in and changed the culture of the team and made players believe they could beat the juggernaut up the road. That in itself was an incredible feat. What he also did was work with the talent and develop it to where those players became HHOFers. Bob Johnson to this day is under rated. He was one of the greatest coaches in the sport and we Flames fans were damn lucky to have him come along when he did. He developed the best team in Flames history, and it isn't even close.

[Table 5]

Top 2 (if not the order) is pretty set.

It gets interesting at 3. One would assume Crisp because of the Cup, but personally I think it comes down to Brian Sutter or Hartley. Both guys were able to squeeze a lot of juice out of what they had. Sutter especially had a terrible lineup to work with, but I always remember his teams to be some of the hardest working teams in Flames history.

[CalgaryFan1988]

For me it's about the numbers. Highest winning percentage with enough games played. Terry Crisp

[Cheese]

Bob Johnson was the smartest and likely best coach we have had. He devised the way to stop Gretzky and the high powered Oilers and created a new way of coaching.

[troutman]

It was coaching that got the Flames past the Oilers in 1986. That was a big mis-match on paper.

[DeluxeMoustache]

Voted Sutter (the good Sutter) because there was no option for Geoff Ward

[Sylvanfan]

It's a tough call between Badger Bob, who was very innovative for his time vs Sutter who willed a pretty rag tag group to nearly winning the cup, and followed up with a Jennings winning team that won it's Division. Had Johnson stayed around to coach the more talented versions of the team who knows how many cups they may or may not have won.

[Dion]

Badger Bob had a 7 point plan to beat the Oilers back in 1986 and it worked.

During a playoff series against Gretzky, Kurri and Co., Johnson outfitted a third-string goalie in an Oiler jersey.

"College coach,'' snorted Oilers' boss Glen Sather, when informed of the unorthodox tactic.

"I was coaching against the Russians,'' parried the Badger, "when he was still in diapers."

He changed the culture of the organization

"At that stage of our careers, the young guys - Gary Suter, myself, Jamie Macoun, Robs, Otts - could not have had a better, more positive, influence.

"We all owe him so much.

"He changed the culture of the entire organization. He brought conditioning in. He brought nutrition in.

"Change is the hardest thing to institute or to accept. And Badger was a true innovator.

His knowledge of the game

"His hockey knowledge was SO ahead of the time. He used a left-winger lock against the Oilers. Well, 10 years later, we've got everyone taking credit for inventing it! And Badger was happy to tell us he'd taken it from the Czechoslovakian national team.

"He justified it by explaining that most of our goals came from the right side - Mully, Lanny, Hakan Loob - while all our checkers, the Colin Pattersons and Jim Peplinskis, were over on the left.

"And it worked.

His focus on the powerplay

"I've never met a coach, or played for a coach, that loved the power play the way he did,'' recalls MacInnis.

"This was back in the day when hardly anybody practiced it. We would spend 45 minutes to an hour on special teams. Every day.

"That's how we were going to beat Edmonton; he'd tell us. If we could stay with 'em 5-on-5, we'd beat them on the special teams.

"If you look at our power play percentage the years he coached that team … pretty impressive.

He had an uncanny way of motivating players

Sheehy was a project of Johnson's. One of those lunch-bucket, role players - his role being to bait Wayne Gretzky and throw the Great One off his game.

"Best advice I ever had,'' says Sheehy, "came from Badger. He pulls me aside one day, sits me down and says: 'Sheehy, do you know you're just like an actor in a Broadway play?'

"I'm sitting on the edge of my seat, you know, soaking this all up, getting a pep talk. "OK, coach. All right, coach. I'm an actor in a Broadway play.'

"And he says: 'Actors have to give the public a good performance right, Sheehy? They've got to ENTERTAIN people.'

"I'm like: 'Yeah, coach. Yeah, they do.'

"He goes: 'And you know what happens, Sheehy, when actors can't act?'

"I say: 'What, coach?'

"He goes: 'We bring in new actors! Now, Sheehy, get out there and act! Entertain those people!'"

https://www.nhl.com/flames/news/bob-...er/c-284102700

[FanIn80]

I loved Badger, but I went with Crispy as he was the only coach to actually get us to the goal. Darryl vs Badger is a tough one for me after that, though.

[Cali Panthers Fan]

About what I expected, a 50/50 split between Badger Bob and Darryl Sutter. Hard to argue against either choice. I went with Bob because he took them from relative obscurity to one of the most competitive teams in the league. They also really gave Edmonton everything they had while being the lesser talented team through his time in the 80s. It was a point of pride for him to have the Flames beat the Oilers at any point.

Terry Crisp benefited from all his hard work and some talent added to take them over the top. All the groundwork for that championship team was laid down by Badger Bob.

[David Struch]

I never realized the Left Wing Lock went back that far, I remember Dave King instituting it well in Calgary, with Ranheim, Sullivan and Kruse.

[Erick Estrada]

It's a great day for hockey.

[looooob]

Originally Posted by troutman

It was coaching that got the Flames past the Oilers in 1986. That was a big mis-match on paper.

as was 04 x 3 series, but I do take your point


in the end the 86 Flames team I guess had 3 Hall of Famers (MacInnis, Mullen, Lanny- still useful at that point), several core members of the 89 team (Vernon, Otto, Macoun, Suter, Loob, Pepper, Hunter), 2 other cup hardened veterans (Riser, Tonelli) and a further collection of useful players (Reinhart, Wilson, Bozek, Lemelin, Quinn ) etc. but yes they were a good team- albeit no Oilers


to me its still down to Badger and Darryl- could 2 guys be more different? but both were great quotes in their own way (people used to say Sutters pressers were non informative- I found they were very useful if you had his decoder ring)


interestingly both guys went on to cups elsewhere- further proof they were great coaches


I still think Badgers specific take down of the 86 Oilers is more compelling so I'll go for him, but its pretty close ( to put things another way Badger had access to the Flames best GM- Fletcher, Sutter had Sutter the GM who had inherited from Button )

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by DeluxeMoustache

Voted Sutter (the good Sutter) because there was no option for Geoff Ward

These sorts of back-handed jabs at the Board and anonymous segments of its membership are tiresome and unfunny.

Knock it off.

Sent from my SM-G960W using Tapatalk