A coach's tenure shouldn't last beyond the GM's, writes Adam Proteau. It's time for a new team architect in Calgary, and they now get to choose their bench boss.
The Calgary Flames dismissed coach Darryl Sutter on Monday, ending the Stanley Cup champion’s second stint behind Calgary’s bench after two-and-a-half seasons.
The move followed the parting of ways between the Flames and now-former GM Brad Treliving in mid-April, a direct result of Calgary missing the playoffs just one season after winning its division. But the inevitability of Sutter’s firing really came into light weeks prior to that.
It should go without saying, but hard-nosed, authoritarian coaches like Sutter have less of a shelf life in the modern NHL. Current interim GM Don Maloney said exactly that in his press conference announcing Sutter’s dismissal. Coaches like Sutter can get buy-in in the short term, but they almost always wind up burning bridges and can't quite connect with players up and down the lineup. You need full buy-in from the entire team to make the playoffs, and that just wasn’t there.
This is why it was so baffling to see the Philadelphia Flyers hire John Tortorella when, to many people, Tortorella’s style was not what you needed for a rebuilding team. OK, well it wasn’t baffling. Former Flyers GM Chuck Fletcher erroneously saw the team as being on the brink of playoff success, so he brought in Tortorella to squeeze more life out of the team. Instead, the Flyers did alright at first but cratered, finally realized they needed a full-on rebuild and are stuck with Tortorella for the three years left on his contract. That is unless Flyers ownership is willing to give their new GM a clean slate in hiring their own staff, including their coach.
That’s a major financial expenditure that not every NHL team is willing to make, so you do have to give Flames co-owner Murray Edwards credit for paying Sutter to go away. Whoever lands the full-time Calgary GM position is going to be able to pick their own person for the coaching job.
It won’t be an illogical approach, the way Anaheim, for instance, went about their coaching and management. When the Ducks hired Pat Verbeek as their new GM in February of 2022, Anaheim had employed Dallas Eakins as their coach since 2019. Verbeek was willing to give Eakins some landing room, but the reality of the Ducks’ major rebuild probably cast Eakins as a long shot to survive his recently-expiring contract and retain the job after a contract extension.
The Flames now don’t have to worry about a coach being in place before the permanent GM is brought on board. They’ve got an internal GM candidate in Craig Conroy, and he would be free to promote someone, such as AHL Wranglers coach Mitch Love. He could also go outside the organization and turn to either a veteran like Bruce Boudreau or Peter Laviolette – two coaches who are wired to win right away but have a less caustic approach than Sutter – or give a shot to a new coach such as current Toronto assistant Spencer Carbery.
There are many ways Flames management can take the team, but most people see a reshaping job ahead for them as opposed to a basement-to-ceiling rebuild of the lineup. But the good news now is that Calgary brass can’t put the cart before the horse and give the new GM no choice but to hang onto a coach they never hired.
It would’ve been a massive waste of a season if Maloney had retained Sutter for the 2023-24 campaign, and the Flames can now start fresh, the right way, at getting back to legitimate Cup contention.
A coach isn’t supposed to have tenure beyond that of their GM. The two positions are inexorably tied together. Calgary is doing the right thing by clearing the decks for a new team architect.