Confirmed with Link: Flames fire Geoff Ward, Hire Darryl Sutter as Head Coach

[IGGY2JOHNNY]

Anybody else think it’s possible Darryl walks away at the end of the season ?? He said in his press conference that he came here for 1 reason and that was to win the cup but it is very apparent this team is no where close to that right now and needs a serious retool and now that he has seen that for himself up close, is it possible he doesn’t want to coach a team going through a retool and walks away in the offseason ??

 

[herashak]

Anybody else think it’s possible Darryl walks away at the end of the season ?? He said in his press conference that he came here for 1 reason and that was to win the cup but it is very apparent this team is no where close to that right now and needs a serious retool and now that he has seen that for himself up close, is it possible he doesn’t want to coach a team going through a retool and walks away in the offseason ??

Nope, maybe after 2

 

[CamPopplestone]

Anybody else think it’s possible Darryl walks away at the end of the season ?? He said in his press conference that he came here for 1 reason and that was to win the cup but it is very apparent this team is no where close to that right now and needs a serious retool and now that he has seen that for himself up close, is it possible he doesn’t want to coach a team going through a retool and walks away in the offseason ??

Nah. This is gonna be his last NHL gig, he's gonna want to make that salary while he can. Will go a long way to supporting his ranch and he can coast off these next couple years pay for a long time

 

[Kranix]

You know what's gonna happen you guys. They're gonna fire Brad make Darryl coach and gm again

 

[TheHudlinator]

You know what's gonna happen you guys. They're gonna fire Brad make Darryl coach and gm again

Sutter was a bad GM and I would be fine with this if that's what it takes to get Treliving out.

 

[IGGY2JOHNNY]

Sutter was a bad GM and I would be fine with this if that's what it takes to get Treliving out.

This fan base needs to be carful what it wishes for in terms of Treliving being let go. Yes he hasn’t been great and has made some obvious blunders but he’s far from the worst gm and I do not trust our ownership at all to choose a competent replacement. People seem to forget all too quickly what it was like having Feaster as the GM and being a laughing stock league wide for our trades and drafting under him.

 

[TheHudlinator]

This fan base needs to be carful what it wishes for in terms of Treliving being let go. Yes he hasn’t been great and has made some obvious blunders but he’s far from the worst gm and I do not trust our ownership at all to choose a competent replacement. People seem to forget all too quickly what it was like having Feaster as the GM and being a laughing stock league wide for our trades and drafting under him.

Anything is better than mediocrity, we can certainly make fun of the Feaster era but he got us JG and got this franchise to the second round while being a "laughing stock". Treliving inherited a team that was fighting for a playoff position with young talent and since then we have become a team that would be lucky to be fighting for a playoff position. Feaster for all his faults found a way to more success in less time with less to work with than Treliving.

 

[InfinityIggy]

This fan base needs to be carful what it wishes for in terms of Treliving being let go. Yes he hasn’t been great and has made some obvious blunders but he’s far from the worst gm and I do not trust our ownership at all to choose a competent replacement. People seem to forget all too quickly what it was like having Feaster as the GM and being a laughing stock league wide for our trades and drafting under him.

This is the biggest issue with letting Treliving go. His replacement is going to 100% be a reversion back to the trend of a GM that is essentially an ownership puppet. We should be careful what we wish for there indeed.

 

[Bounces R Way]

Tre has done alright in a couple aspects but there has been way too much cutting corners. Trading a buttload of picks for Hamilton and Hamonic, one UFA blunder after another, hitching our wagon to Sean Monahan as our 1C, cheaping out on coaches, the total failure of drafting and developing a goalie.

The fact Sam Bennett has never played an AHL game is a pretty massive indictment on this franchise to me. I'm ready to move on from Brad but like has been mentioned above I don't trust this ownership group to hire someone who is really willing to do what it takes to strip it down and build a contending team. Seems like all they want to do is make the playoffs so they can squeeze out some first round revenue.

 

[super6646]

Tre has done alright in a couple aspects but there has been way too much cutting corners. Trading a buttload of picks for Hamilton and Hamonic, one UFA blunder after another, hitching our wagon to Sean Monahan as our 1C, cheaping out on coaches, the total failure of drafting and developing a goalie.

The fact Sam Bennett has never played an AHL game is a pretty massive indictment on this franchise to me. I'm ready to move on from Brad but like has been mentioned above I don't trust this ownership group to hire someone who is really willing to do what it takes to strip it down and build a contending team. Seems like all they want to do is make the playoffs so they can squeeze out some first round revenue.

Why would Bennett have played an AHL game? He would've had to have gone back to juniors for 2 seasons before being eligible for the AHL, and he had a 36 pt rookie season. Its just too bad he peaked early on, but his first year showed lots of promise. I doubt anyone at the time thought he needed AHL seasoning.

 

[Johnny Hoxville]

Honestly I don’t blame Tre for a lot. Who else were we realistically going to draft where we did with Monahan and Bennett? 30/30 GM’s would have done the same. The Hamonic deal was poor but we did great with getting Dougie and then flipping him for Lindy and Noah.

Other than Brouwer, Raymond and Neal, he’s been pretty decent.

 

[Bounces R Way]

Why would Bennett have played an AHL game? He would've had to have gone back to juniors for 2 seasons before being eligible for the AHL, and he had a 36 pt rookie season. Its just too bad he peaked early on, but his first year showed lots of promise. I doubt anyone at the time thought he needed AHL seasoning.

Draisaitl went back to junior. Kadri bounced around for a couple years between the AHL and NHL. Plenty of other examples where high drafted players benefited from time in the AHL or other lower leagues.

Bennett might have had a nice rookie year but his game still quite obviously needed a lot of refinement. He drove the net well and that was basically it. By playing him 14 minutes a night the Flames developed him to be a bottom 6 plug and surprise surprise that's what they got. You don't have much of a chance to develop in the NHL when there's a lot at stake every night and every mistake you make gets amplified. He should have had an opportunity to go down and play 1C for the Heat for half a season or more to round out his game. Just because he was 'good enough' to be an NHL player doesn't mean keeping him there was the best course of action. Good enough is a mentality this franchise needs to get beaten out of them. I'm not absolving him of blame here either because there's a fair bit he hasn't lived up to, but the Flames really haven't done him a done of favors.

 

[super6646]

Draisaitl went back to junior. Kadri bounced around for a couple years between the AHL and NHL. Plenty of other examples where high drafted players benefited from time in the AHL or other lower leagues.

Bennett might have had a nice rookie year but his game still quite obviously needed a lot of refinement. He drove the net well and that was basically it. By playing him 14 minutes a night the Flames developed him to be a bottom 6 plug and surprise surprise that's what they got. You don't have much of a chance to develop in the NHL when there's a lot at stake every night and every mistake you make gets amplified. He should have had an opportunity to go down and play 1C for the Heat for half a season or more to round out his game. Just because he was 'good enough' to be an NHL player doesn't mean keeping him there was the best course of action. Good enough is a mentality this franchise needs to get beaten out of them. I'm not absolving him of blame here either because there's a fair bit he hasn't lived up to, but the Flames really haven't done him a done of favors.

Again when?

Even in his second season he was pacing at half a ppg for the first half. There’s a ton of hindsight required to justify this sort of decision.

I agree they screwed him up after the first year, but playing him with backs and frolik on the second line was hardly prepping him for bottom 6 mins imo

 

[Kranix]

He should have spent some time in junior. It doesn't matter now though. He isn't the player he could have been, or what a certain person here thinks he is if he only was given the minutes. He's a total bust. Doesn't matter how it happened.

 

[Bounces R Way]

Again when?

Even in his second season he was pacing at half a ppg for the first half. There’s a ton of hindsight required to justify this sort of decision.

I agree they screwed him up after the first year, but playing him with backs and frolik on the second line was hardly prepping him for bottom 6 mins imo

Oh I dunno, like any of the stretches where he goes pointless for 20 games and is a -7.

There's kinda been a lot of them.

 

[Iggys Dome]

It really sucks to be a Flames fan right now. When we hired Dutter I thought we’d make a run at the playoffs, maybe not quite make it, but at least play with some heart and win half our games remaining. I never thought it’d get this bad.

 

[super6646]

Oh I dunno, like any of the stretches where he goes pointless for 20 games and is a -7.

There's kinda been a lot of them.

Wasnt he eligible for waivers by 2017-18?

Even then I still think a lot of fans would strongly agree with the sentiment only with hindsight.

Inconsistent play aside, his production in 2015-16 didn’t warrant being sent down, and by 2016-17 most would’ve wanted him to play through it. 2017-18 well he’s eligible for waivers so it can’t happen even if you want it to.

 

[Bounces R Way]

Wasnt he eligible for waivers by 2017-18?

Even then I still think a lot of fans would strongly agree with the sentiment only with hindsight.

Inconsistent play aside, his production in 2015-16 didn’t warrant being sent down, and by 2016-17 most would’ve wanted him to play through it. 2017-18 well he’s eligible for waivers so it can’t happen even if you want it to.

That's the thing about hindsight. It's usually born through a total lack of foresight. Which again is a big part of why this team is just spinning its tires most years. Shoot for a 7th or 8th place finish and hope that anything can happen in the playoffs.

 

[TheHudlinator]

Honestly I don’t blame Tre for a lot. Who else were we realistically going to draft where we did with Monahan and Bennett? 30/30 GM’s would have done the same. The Hamonic deal was poor but we did great with getting Dougie and then flipping him for Lindy and Noah.

Other than Brouwer, Raymond and Neal, he’s been pretty decent.

7 years and what 1 playoff series win? I guess it depends on your expectations but to me that's an epic failure and it has to be laid at Trelivings feet. Others may have made the Bennett pick but him busting has to be apart of the blame on Treliving. His entire time here and we played great hockey what 6 months?

 

[lightstorm]

Honestly I don’t blame Tre for a lot. Who else were we realistically going to draft where we did with Monahan and Bennett? 30/30 GM’s would have done the same. The Hamonic deal was poor but we did great with getting Dougie and then flipping him for Lindy and Noah.

Other than Brouwer, Raymond and Neal, he’s been pretty decent.

Hi terrible coaching hires?
Couldn't find a goalie for 6 years?
Couldn't find a RW to play with Gaudreau once Hudler was done?
Lost Brodie/Hamonic/Kulak/Byron for nothing?
Bled picks for Lazar, Stone, Bollig etc?

 

[InfinityIggy]

7 years and what 1 playoff series win? I guess it depends on your expectations but to me that's an epic failure and it has to be laid at Trelivings feet. Others may have made the Bennett pick but him busting has to be apart of the blame on Treliving. His entire time here and we played great hockey what 6 months?

We can't blame Treliving for Bennett busting, but we can blame him for holding onto Bennett for so long, to the point where Treliving clearly and obviously has some bitterness towards Bennett, all the while Bennett's value was ever dwindling.

 

[Johnny Hoxville]

I’m not saying Treliving shouldn’t have any of the blame, but are we not taking Monahan at that spot? I suppose could have reached for Horvat, but that would have been viewed as a poor move. Nuke was not being taken by us and that would have been seen as a a far worse pick.

With Bennett, the only other players we could have realistically taken were either Nylander or Ritchie (lol). I think Bennett was hands down the consensus pick so I don’t see what we could have done differently. Honestly the Flames got **** luck. Monahan would have been a good 2C had Bennett turned into a Kesler type of player.

Coaching hasn’t been good, we probably should have kept Hartley but Treliving wanted his own guy. Gully didn’t work out because our players are soft as ****. Peters was a good hire as a coach, but I also think that was pretty unforeseen how things transpired.

I’m just saying had the Flames gotten Leon instead of Bennett, the odds are we aren’t having this conversation right now. Overall I think we have a GM who works his ass off and has a lot of experience now and has learned from his mistakes. We have the same core because of the way our world is and he hasn’t made us worse team for the sake of it.

 

[lightstorm]

It can be argued had the Flames gotten Draisaitl, he'd turn out like Janko did. Oilers worked with him to fix his skating (something the Flames have never done with Monahan and now with Tkachuk or Rasmus) and once he was recalled they kept him glued to first Hall then McDavid no matter what.

Bennett on the other hand was quickly demoted to bottom 6, paired with deadwood and surprise surprise he never realized his potential. They seem to be doing the same thing to Dube now.

Heck look at what has Edmonton done with Pulju, they have him on a line with McDavid, if Flames bras were running that team Pulju would be playing with Haas and fans would be crapping on him like we crap on Bennett.

 

[Mobiandi]

After Hartley, Bennett was set up to fail and Monahan was never held accountable for his weaknesses. The result is two players who never fully learnt the game well enough at the NHL level to be the elite talent they were touted to be

 

[Anglesmith]

I think for the most part Treliving has made the right moves, but with the wrong pieces. He assembled a core from guys picked at the top of the first round, which is what you are supposed to do. He was patient in his build, but aggressive when a clear team need was identified and when he had a chance to address it. As a GM, I think he is a guy you can trust to make the right type of move at the right time. I definitely agree with the notion that we could do a lot worse if we change the GM.

Treliving's biggest knock is obviously results and decisions on coaches, but both of those things are heavily influenced by factors outside of his control. You could say that the disparity between how Draisaitl and Bennett turned out is likely the biggest reason for the disparity between Edmonton and Calgary at this point in time. At the end of the day, rebuilds are an investment in the top picks that you get at the bottom of the valley. If you don't get return on those investments, your job as GM becomes a whole lot more difficult. And I have a hard time pointing at Treliving as being at fault for that.