The Calgary Flames decided before the season began to extend their Head Coach, Ryan Huska, to a two-year contract extension with a year remaining on his current contract. It was met with a split down the middle from the fanbase; some were very happy with it, and others, like myself, thought it was extremely premature to extend him now, considering the circumstances that played out last season.
I may be hitting the panic button much too early, but the extension was not earned; but given prematurely. I believe it was a huge mistake to commit to this coach for another two years.
Huska’s lack of preparation and tactical mindset
If anyone watched the Flames last season, it was really easy to see how they won a majority of their games. Two words: Dustin Wolf.
The Flames played many of their games chasing, being outplayed and relying on their rookie phenom between the pipes to bail them out before finally squeaking a goal out at the other end. It was almost every game, get outplayed, hope Wolf could keep them in it, and then hope and pray you get a bounce.
The team had no pop offensively from a lack of star power, but also Huska not deploying a system that lets his best offensive players be creative and take chances. There is no creativity. There is no sense of urgency, and there are no high-risk plays ever made with the guys up front.
The Flames finished 27th in goals for last season, which falls on Huska. It was evident from the word go last year that the team was going to have scoring troubles, and he never made any changes to help them put the puck in the net more often, even with the limited amount of scoring power the team lacked. That has translated early into this season. Nothing has changed.
Defensively, they were not much better. They gave up lots of high-danger scoring chances and really did nothing to stop that over the course of the season. Again, it was just hope that Wolf would make the big saves when he needed to when the plays broke down in their own end. You can’t play a system that simply relies on your goalie to make every big save; it is a major downgrade from the system.
We saw the team play under Darryl Sutter, where they were stout defensively but also dangerous on the offensive side of the puck. Once again, nothing has changed on this front; they look much worse defensively to start this season, and Wolf has not been able to bail them out as much as he did a season ago.
The Flames are now 1–4 with their loss to Utah last night; they should be 0–5 if it wasn’t for Stuart Skinner completely blowing the game for the Edmonton Oilers on opening night. Huska has not changed anything for a team that had below-average on-ice impacts a season ago, and that once again falls on the bench boss to make adjustments. He has not done that at all.
Roster decisions and usage of younger players
It has been apparent since Huska took over that he isn’t really sure what to do on the roster deployment side of things, and he has no idea how to handle young players’ development. Even Matt Coronato struggled to earn playing time before his breakout finally happened.
If you remember, Coronato started the season in the press box, then on the 4th line, then in the AHL for a couple of games. He had to force his way onto the roster and into the top six because he was always an NHL player, and for whatever reason, players who were not everyday players were slotted ahead of him, like Ryan Lomberg and Justin Kirkland, to name a few. Huska should not be commended for that; that was Coronato proving that he is a very good player.
This season, same old story. Rory Kerins had a fantastic preseason, banished to the minors for vets who were much worse. The same went for Ilya Solovyov, and when they sent him down, he was claimed on waivers by the Colorado Avalanche.
Daniil Miromanov and Jake Bean were statistically not good players for the Flames last season. They lost all of their minutes while being horrid defensively and offering nothing offensively. They are still here. Both of them have played in games this season and have been terrible, as they were a season ago.
This has come at the expense of rookie defencemen, Zayne Parekh, who was scratched in the first two games of the season so that Bean could play. It was a bad decision early on, and it showed a lack of confidence in the team’s best prospect in a decade. Parekh has played in three straight games since, but he should have been in the lineup from the word go.
Parekh will struggle, and that is fine, but why scratch him when the vets are already a worse option than the rookie? It is decisions like this that drive players away from a franchise, and is extremely frustrating seeing time and time again Huska leaning towards the “veterans” over the young players who don’t have the experience. When it comes to Matvei Gridin, he only made the team because Jonathan Huberdeau got hurt. Even though he earned a spot over multiple veterans, that is the only reason he is still around.
Not putting players in a place to succeed
Huska isn’t exactly a mastermind when it comes to line combinations and trying to get players going in the right direction. This hasn’t been clearer than right now with the lineups that he has been putting together on a nightly basis.
Connor Zary, a player who should be in a spot where he is getting lots of minutes to figure out what kind of player he could be in this league, spent a couple of games playing beside two AHL players in Ryan Lomberg and Adam Klapka and only playing slightly more than Lomberg. Zary has a ton of skill; on most nights could be the most skilled player on the team, so playing him on the 4th line, once again, makes no sense.
When it comes to Parekh, his strength is generating offence; he should have a significant role on the team’s power play, however, he barely gets any run. I love MacKenzie Weegar, and he is the team’s best rear guard, but Parekh’s skills and abilities much outweigh Weegar’s. The spot on the top power play unit should belong to Parekh, especially considering how poor the Flames have looked with the man advantage this season.
Finally, the pairing of Kevin Bahl and Rasmus Andersson should be fired to the moon. The pairing has been poor going back to last season, and it has not gotten any better this year. There is no reason why they should still be together, and Huska has to put them both in different spots if he wants them both to hopefully play better. It has been mind-numbing watching Huska make these decisions on the lineup and making no adjustments.
Huska should not be the long-term plan behind the bench
Huska is not the solution behind the bench for the Flames if they ever want to be serious contenders. From the tactics being solved by every opponent, the baffling lineup decisions, and the lack of transparency and trust to the younger players, it is more evident than ever that Huska is in way over his head.
There was no reason to hand him an extension before this season began, and it is more clear than ever that last season was carried on the back of Wolf. The team looks lifeless; they cannot score or generate offence to save their lives, and Huska has done nothing to help them. The system is terrible, and the team looks like they have no idea what they are supposed to do on the ice.
That is on Huska.
I really think the Flames should have played out this season before handing out an extension to a coach who was only a point out of the playoffs because of his goalie and nothing else.
Having lived through the Darryl Sutter era, we have all seen what a great coach can do for a team, and Huska isn’t it. This extension was a big mistake.
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