People forget that Gulutzan was one of the sexiest up and coming coaches ca. 2011. IIRC, the conversation around his hire in Dallas was that the Stars felt compelled to can Crawford early, even if they weren't necessarily ready to, for fear that Gulutzan would be poached by another NHL team. He was the Travis Green or Todd Reirdon that year.
Two NHL seasons is a relatively small sample size in terms of a career and on-ice results, but it is a huge chunk of time in terms of experiential learning. Based on that interview in the Providence, it sounds like Gulutzan was thrown in the deep end and wasn't necessarily ready in spite of the media buzz for his candidacy that year -- always a danger with a first time coach. Issues seem mostly to have been about man management and other administrative details related to being one of the youngest head coaches ever in the NHL, rather than systems or philosophy. Working for a green (incompetent?) GM probably didn't help.
But he clearly learned a ton from the Dallas experience about the NHL and how to run in the bigs, he's clearly a bright hockey mind, and he clearly works his balls off. After seasoning for a couple more years as an assistant, I can see why Treliving thinks he's ready for another shot.
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