Calgary Flames Coach Ranking #8

[Bingo]

1. Darryl Sutter
2. Bob Johnson
3. Terry Crisp
4. Bob Hartley
5. Dave King
6. Al MacNeill
7. Mike Keenan

[agulati]

Voted for Brent Sutter, as I didn’t really see the team under Brian Sutter.

[_Q_]

What's up with the Brian Sutter love? I don't remember him being a particularly good coach.

I voted for Bill Peters. His record last year speaks for itself.

[Buff]

Originally Posted by _Q_

What's up with the Brian Sutter love? I don't remember him being a particularly good coach.

I voted for Bill Peters. His record last year speaks for itself.

He had the worst rosters yet the team was hard to play against and somewhat entertaining to watch. I think he cost us a couple of top 5 picks.

[Sainters7]

And he had that classic Darryl Sutter-style ornery nature in pressers that made him entertaining - Brent seems to be the only one who didn't get that trait.

Yeah it's hard because he was the coach of arguably the worst teams in Calgary Flames history, but they really should've been a lot worse. It's amazing in those years they never really were a true bottom-feeder, I mean just look at those rosters.

[JohnnyB]

Brian Sutter is one of the coaches I have pretty much neutral feelings about. Those were depressing years, but I don't put it on him as a coach. He did fine with what the conditions of the time were, but they are dark days to look back on nonetheless.

I voted Ward again for turning around the awful start to this season and in the hopes of a good playoffs this year. He hasn't much time behind the bench, but at least his time has been overall positive.

Cannot vote for Peters. The terrible playoff outcome last year is one thing, and I think his coaching was a significant component of that, but the way they came out against the Avs for the first game of the year and lost again just showed to me that the team culture had no pride left and was never going anywhere. He got one great regular season out of the team, but that's it. Fortunately the team was saved by Akim Aliu. Glad Peters got the boot.

Edit: I'll also add, although Peters got great results in that regular season and those results are hard to argue with, I just didn't enjoy watching how he had the team playing a lot of the time. We went from one of the most entertaining Flames teams I've ever watched to a team that got results but often wasn't that fun to watch. The way they lost against the Avs also really sapped my enthusiasm for the team as a fan. I felt like they had stopped being an enjoyable team to cheer for and get behind. This was the first season in years that I hadn't ordered an NHL Live package because of how they were playing under Peters.

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by JohnnyB

Brian Sutter is one of the coaches I have pretty much neutral feelings about. Those were depressing years, but I don't put it on him as a coach. He did fine with what the conditions of the time were, but they are dark days to look back on nonetheless.

I voted Ward again for turning around the awful start to this season and in the hopes of a good playoffs this year. He hasn't much time behind the bench, but at least his time has been overall positive.

Cannot vote for Peters. The terrible playoff outcome last year is one thing, and I think his coaching was a significant component of that, but the way they came out against the Avs for the first game of the year and lost again just showed to me that the team culture had no pride left and was never going anywhere. He got one great regular season out of the team, but that's it. Fortunately the team was saved by Akim Aliu. Glad Peters got the boot.

Edit: I'll also add, although Peters got great results in that regular season and those results are hard to argue with, I just didn't enjoy watching how he had the team playing a lot of the time. We went from one of the most entertaining Flames teams I've ever watched to a team that got results but often wasn't that fun to watch. The way they lost against the Avs also really sapped my enthusiasm for the team as a fan. I felt like they had stopped being an enjoyable team to cheer for and get behind. This was the first season in years that I hadn't ordered an NHL Live package because of how they were playing under Peters.

Really?

They were top five in almost every single offensive generation stat, and 2nd overall in goal scoring in all situations.

The playoffs were a thud, but the regular season was about as firewagon as you can get.

I don't know where to put Peters. It's really only one season so not way up the lest, but I have a hard time holding his past against him from another organization if I'm not including say Keenan's past success when voting.

[boogerz]

You could make a good case for Playfair as #8. That 2006-07 team was very top-heavy with little depth outside of the big 4 forwards (Iginla, Tanguay, Huselius, and Langkow) and big 3 D (Phaneuf, Hamrlik, Regehr), and Kipper.

Sure... it sounded like he eventually lost the room, but the whole team was firing on all cylinders during the regular season. Top 6 in GF, 11th in GA, and they were consistently winning throughout the regular season in the competitive NW division.

If Regehr doesn't get injured in game 1 of the playoffs, thereby exposing the horrendous lack of depth against the best team in the league, he definitely would have been around to coach another season. You could also argue that he should have been given a second chance anyways.




Edit: it's also really frustrating that since Crisp, the best Flames coaches never got the best rosters and the best Flames rosters never got the best coaches

[DeluxeMoustache]

Originally Posted by boogerz

Edit: it's also really frustrating that since Crisp, the best Flames coaches never got the best rosters and the best Flames rosters never got the best coaches

That’s part of what made the GM poll so tough

[JohnnyB]

Originally Posted by Bingo

Really?

They were top five in almost every single offensive generation stat, and 2nd overall in goal scoring in all situations.

The playoffs were a thud, but the regular season was about as firewagon as you can get.

I don't know where to put Peters. It's really only one season so not way up the lest, but I have a hard time holding his past against him from another organization if I'm not including say Keenan's past success when voting.

From those stats and the wins they piled up it certainly sounds entertaining. It's possible my memories are somewhat influenced by how the last few months of the team's performance under him went, but that's not how I remember feeling.

Regardless, for a coach that had so much regular season success in the standings, I didn't feel sad at all to see him leave when he did. I wasn't a big fan of the hiring in the first place and I ended up not liking the team very much under his leadership.

[Red_Baron]

My biggest dilema is how to vote the bottom 5.
The two GG's are close to the bottom, Risebrough is right down there with them, Don Hay was completely ineffective at coaching pros, and Brent Sutter couldn't even get a decent roster into the playoffs-how the heck is he getting votes in this round? Page was very forgettable as well.



Just shows how ineffective that shopping for coaches from the bargain bin is.

[dissentowner]

Bill Peters. Despite the outcome of his dismissal he took this team to the top of the Pacific. I don't get the Brian Sutter love either. All he preached was work hard with no system at all. I thought he was he was a hard ass coach who really had no actual coaching skills.

[mikephoen]

Originally Posted by Red_Baron

My biggest dilema is how to vote the bottom 5.
The two GG's are close to the bottom, Risebrough is right down there with them, Don Hay was completely ineffective at coaching pros, and Brent Sutter couldn't even get a decent roster into the playoffs-how the heck is he getting votes in this round? Page was very forgettable as well.



Just shows how ineffective that shopping for coaches from the bargain bin is.

Brent was one of the highest paid coaches in the league in NJ, and Calgary outbid them to get him to come to Calgary, so he definitely wasn't bargain bin. I do wonder if him being a complete flop after being paid big has influenced the spending since.

[Sylvanfan]

Originally Posted by Red_Baron

Brent Sutter couldn't even get a decent roster into the playoffs-how the heck is he getting votes in this round? Page was very forgettable as well.

In retrospect...I don't know if those were very good rosters. They were aging rosters that had paid the price for trying to be better teams in the previous coaches tenure. They had a lot of established players who were no longer the guys they had been.

Watching some replays of the 04 Flames this summer, that Iginla was a different player than the guy Brent was coaching. So he get's blamed for ruining Iginla quite frequently...but in reality Iginla wasn't the same ultra athlete he was when Daryl had him.