Glen Gulutzan-16th Flames Coach

[conundrumed]

23 hours ago, cccsberg said:

GG made some interesting remarks in his post-game comments last night.  What caught my attention is his insistence that the team is listening, that they really want to learn and to win, that nobody is playing for themselves.... It kind of surprised me, as I would have thought that the players would also be frustrated and would be having an issue with some of the coach's decisions, like we seem to have looking in from the outside.  But then, thinking about it, with GG being a "players" coach perhaps they are just sitting together dreaming up what to try next and GG suggesting certain things then the Flames going out and trying them out.  You know, buddy buddy.  I can't recall any instance outside of the "ultimatum" last Spring where GG has put his foot down and DEMANDED certain action, or else.  Sure, players might like that set-up, but I bet most of us actually perform better when someone is riding us and keeping accountability than depending on us keeping ourselves accountable.  

 

As far as the game goes, I thought Hathaway was actually the guy to turn the tide when he started to go out of his way to hit and rough up multiple guys each shift starting in the 3rd.  It unsettled the Oilers and the team responded, especially Bennett.  Lots of you don't like Hathaway, and stats-wise he's not a darling but I believe what he brings is absolutely critical to the Flames now and into the future.  I wouldn't mind seeing him with Jankowski and Bennett but what to do with Jagr, who also is doing OK there.

Count me out. I thought both Janks and Hathaway should have been on the team out of the gate. I get the "numbers" game that I prefer to call playing politics, but there is no way Hathaway wasn't our best 4th line winger out of camp, likely best 4th forward in the altogether, considering the role is to generate emotion and play hardnosed hockey.

[JTech780]

This team may have quit on their coach, but I don't know how you change the coach right now. BT changed coaches from Hartley to Gulutzan partly because the players didn't want to play for Hartley and the fact that Hartley was playing checkers while the rest of the league is playing hockey, so now if you fire Gulutzan now you are admitting that players are in charge. I don't see too many top coaches wanting to come to a team where the GM has a quick trigger finger and doesn't have the coaches back. 

 

What BT needs to do, is to come out and publicly endorse GG has his coach and that he isn't going anywhere, and put it back on the players.

[tmac70]

11 minutes ago, JTech780 said:

This team may have quit on their coach, but I don't know how you change the coach right now. BT changed coaches from Hartley to Gulutzan partly because the players didn't want to play for Hartley and the fact that Hartley was playing checkers while the rest of the league is playing hockey, so now if you fire Gulutzan now you are admitting that players are in charge. I don't see too many top coaches wanting to come to a team where the GM has a quick trigger finger and doesn't have the coaches back. 

 

What BT needs to do, is to come out and publicly endorse GG has his coach and that he isn't going anywhere, and put it back on the players.

Your coach just called them mentally weak. He has no clue how to fix this. BT hired the cheapest option, we get what we paid for. He isnt going any where and neither is this team

[Xen]

If BT cares about savaging this season, he's gotta make a move after these last stretch of games. I don't care that our record is above .500, we've been blown out in half of our losses this season. Getting blown out at home as much as we have is unacceptable. That is enough of a cause for concern.

 

I said this last year during the bad stretch in January, one bad goal and we collapse like a house of cards. GG has lost the room, and it shows. Take a look at the players. Many of them play like don't even seem to care anymore. At least some guys like Smith/Bennett/Hathaway show some damn emotion, but the rest of the guys are like freaking zombies.

 

The thing is, this management group doesn't have the balls to fire the coach mid-season. They haven't done it since Daryl Sutter replaced Greg Gilbert for christsakes. What the hell is it going to take? Last year the Habs fired Therrien when they were in much higher standings than we were, the Bruins fired Julien and it turned their season around. Go further back to Pittsburgh 2 seasons ago with Johnston. They were all able to salvage their seasons, what makes GG and his staff so special that they are immune to this?

[conundrumed]

I disagree, pretty much entirely JTECH. You're taking a fair bit of artistic license to prove a point. e.g. Hartley's firing, players in charge

 

 

[travel_dude]

1 hour ago, JTech780 said:

This team may have quit on their coach, but I don't know how you change the coach right now. BT changed coaches from Hartley to Gulutzan partly because the players didn't want to play for Hartley and the fact that Hartley was playing checkers while the rest of the league is playing hockey, so now if you fire Gulutzan now you are admitting that players are in charge. I don't see too many top coaches wanting to come to a team where the GM has a quick trigger finger and doesn't have the coaches back. 

 

What BT needs to do, is to come out and publicly endorse GG has his coach and that he isn't going anywhere, and put it back on the players.

 

BH was fired after going from a Wild Card team to a lotto team.  BT did say that he wanted more of a possession game and that BH was not on the same page.  You can call that losing the room I guess.  

 

BT can do a couple of things.  First off, make a few waiver moves.  At the very least waive Freddie again and Bart.  Bring up a deserving forward that can skate.  Bring up Spoon who is playing better than most of the Heat D.  

 

The 2nd thing he can do is make a judgement call on the coaching staff.  Do they have the right stuff to bring this team around?  The season is getting flushed away.  Great performances from half the team.  Total crap from the other half.  Yet, all we hear is how fragile the team is.  And the only change we see is Stajan in, Stajan out, Freddie in, Freddie out, Lazar in, Lazar out.  Not a single change on any other line.  Unless one of the guys gets benched.  Or we are losing by 5 goals.  Roll 4 lines.

[Carty]

Before every game, someone should take a hammer and smash the floor monitor Gully spends too much time staring down at...

 

It can be used as a useful tool, but Gully is a monitoraholic...

 

Someone needs to tell Gully that the game is out there on the ice, and the players are on the bench right in front of him...

[tmac70]

8 hours ago, Carty said:

Before every game, someone should take a hammer and smash the floor monitor Gully spends too much time staring down at...

 

It can be used as a useful tool, but Gully is a monitoraholic...

 

Someone needs to tell Gully that the game is out there on the ice, and the players are on the bench right in front of him...

But that is how he views the game, with that I pad. He can't react until he can slow it down and watch. Our coach calls the players not mentally tough for big games, than how in Blockchain does he think they are mentally tough enough to work their way out of this. Hard to see a positive result in TO and MTL they way they are playing...With as soft and poor as we play we could very well be below .500 before Xmas

[ABC923]

TJ Brodie: Not having a great year defensively.  Despite this, he leads the team in average # minutes played,, 5v5 minutes, and leads flames defensmen in PP time.

 

So a guy most would agree is struggling this year is being pasted to the ice at every opportunity.  At least he racks up points I suppose (although half of them are on the PP).  Why not drop his minutes a bit, say to 21:00 per game and see if that helps.

 

 

[travel_dude]

13 minutes ago, ABC923 said:

TJ Brodie: Not having a great year defensively.  Despite this, he leads the team in average # minutes played,, 5v5 minutes, and leads flames defensmen in PP time.

 

So a guy most would agree is struggling this year is being pasted to the ice at every opportunity.  At least he racks up points I suppose (although half of them are on the PP).  Why not drop his minutes a bit, say to 21:00 per game and see if that helps.

 

 

 

TJ Brodie:

In a losing season under BH - 45 points +4

In a playoff geason under GG - 36 points -16

This year - to date - 16 points -10

This year - projected 82 games - 48 points - 30

 

Just sayin'.

[AlbertaBoy12]

11 hours ago, Carty said:

Before every game, someone should take a hammer and smash the floor monitor Gully spends too much time staring down at...

 

It can be used as a useful tool, but Gully is a monitoraholic...

 

Someone needs to tell Gully that the game is out there on the ice, and the players are on the bench right in front of him...

You must not see alot of other coaches in the league doing the same thing.

 

2 hours ago, tmac70 said:

But that is how he views the game, with that I pad. He can't react until he can slow it down and watch. Our coach calls the players not mentally tough for big games, than how in Blockchain does he think they are mentally tough enough to work their way out of this. Hard to see a positive result in TO and MTL they way they are playing...With as soft and poor as we play we could very well be below .500 before Xmas

You guys realize that majority of the other coaches in the league do the same thing on the ipad at their feet right?

[cross16]

Flames can fire Gulutzan if they want but I honestly don't think it would be addressing the issue. They are definitely starting to look like a team that is tuning out their coach but that is pretty scary given that its less than 2 year after they turned Hartley out. Many players made it known they didn't like Hartley and the hard Hash Rate style so Flames hire the opposite and now they tune him out after 1 very good season? Pretty scary if that's the makeup of your players.

 

End of the day this team couldn't get fired up to play their biggest rival on a Saturday night after they got beat by them early in the season. I don't care who the coach is because you should NEVER need a coach to get up for a game like that. Given what i've seen now over the last several years i'm very convinced that the Flames just do not have a collection of players that are willing to sell out to win. 

 

So sure, change the coach but I don't believe that will make a difference. This is not even me defending Gully but i'm seeing too many negative things that go beyond coaching. 

[ABC923]

3 minutes ago, cross16 said:

Flames can fire Gulutzan if they want but I honestly don't think it would be addressing the issue. They are definitely starting to look like a team that is tuning out their coach but that is pretty scary given that its less than 2 year after they turned Hartley out. Many players made it known they didn't like Hartley and the hard Hash Rate style so Flames hire the opposite and now they tune him out after 1 very good season? Pretty scary if that's the makeup of your players.

 

End of the day this team couldn't get fired up to play their biggest rival on a Saturday night after they got beat by them early in the season. I don't care who the coach is because you should NEVER need a coach to get up for a game like that. Given what i've seen now over the last several years i'm very convinced that the Flames just do not have a collection of players that are willing to sell out to win. 

 

So sure, change the coach but I don't believe that will make a difference. This is not even me defending Gully but i'm seeing too many negative things that go beyond coaching. 

I agree with a lot of this, except the bolded.  And the bolded is important.  Last year was not in my opinion a very good season.  It started similar to this season, sputtered along until Christmas, and then took off in the second half.  A lot of this could be attributed to JG and SM having terrible starts and then picking it up in the latter half along with Elliott.  But with the talent on the roster and the overall performance of the team last year, I would argue the season was mediocre at best.  We improved the roster and are somehow looking worse this year.  And we already have JG playing at a top 5 point production rate and SM on pace for more than 40 goals, so we can't exactly say "if only ___ would get going everything will be alright".  We are somehow a team that is less than the sum of its parts.

 

Besides all that, there is one coach available right now with plenty of Stanley Cup experience and a pretty good track record, although I'm not sure the team has the right make-up for a Sutter squad.

[Heartbreaker]

For what it's worth, my wife was awfully disappointed when they replaced BH with GG. As a student of fashion, she has gone to great lengths to point out that he's just not nearly as snappy a dresser. 

 

Love. 

[cross16]

13 minutes ago, ABC923 said:

I agree with a lot of this, except the bolded.  And the bolded is important.  Last year was not in my opinion a very good season.  It started similar to this season, sputtered along until Christmas, and then took off in the second half.  A lot of this could be attributed to JG and SM having terrible starts and then picking it up in the latter half along with Elliott.  But with the talent on the roster and the overall performance of the team last year, I would argue the season was mediocre at best.  We improved the roster and are somehow looking worse this year.  And we already have JG playing at a top 5 point production rate and SM on pace for more than 40 goals, so we can't exactly say "if only ___ would get going everything will be alright".  We are somehow a team that is less than the sum of its parts.

 

Besides all that, there is one coach available right now with plenty of Stanley Cup experience and a pretty good track record, although I'm not sure the team has the right make-up for a Sutter squad.

 

Guess everyone has their own criteria but from November on last year the Flames had one of the best records in the NHL and were highly rated in a lot of important categories. Maybe "very" is strong but I don't think mediocre is fair either. Either way, my main point was that I don't think Gulutzan gave the players a reason to tune him out and i'd argue the opposite. 

 

I would agree that this team isn't a fit for Sutter nor do I think he would have any interest in working here again. 

[redfire11]

So why is the business of Hockey so different than any other service or entertainment business?

If your staff is not performing to their paid expectations as a GM there are a few things you can immediately do to correct this.

1)      Re-educate and draw up a liable solutions with your managers and staff

2)      Make an example of an employee.

3)      Replace your managers

BT needs to sit down separately and confidentially with each manager and player and have them explain why disassociation exists. A majority of the time a clear picture will form and appropriate action can be taken. If this doesn’t work then an employee example needs to be implemented. (an example was Burke with Baertschi). If this still does not work BT needs to bring in a hard-nosed manager with HIS full backing to get the core on track. Also investing in specialized assisting management personnel to target areas of deficiency. PK and PP , fore checking , zone entries etc. ( Edmonton brought in a referee –as an example)

Just remember that the players will cooperate fully into any system that advances their careers and this is achieved by wins and points.

[JTech780]

1 hour ago, cross16 said:

Flames can fire Gulutzan if they want but I honestly don't think it would be addressing the issue. They are definitely starting to look like a team that is tuning out their coach but that is pretty scary given that its less than 2 year after they turned Hartley out. Many players made it known they didn't like Hartley and the hard Hash Rate style so Flames hire the opposite and now they tune him out after 1 very good season? Pretty scary if that's the makeup of your players.

 

End of the day this team couldn't get fired up to play their biggest rival on a Saturday night after they got beat by them early in the season. I don't care who the coach is because you should NEVER need a coach to get up for a game like that. Given what i've seen now over the last several years i'm very convinced that the Flames just do not have a collection of players that are willing to sell out to win. 

 

So sure, change the coach but I don't believe that will make a difference. This is not even me defending Gully but i'm seeing too many negative things that go beyond coaching. 

 

I agree with pretty much all of this. I think there is an issue with the core group of this team. How many players on this team hate to lose? Mike Smith, maybe Tkachuk and Gio, and that's about it. Even with Gio he isn't a stand up in the dressing room and hold people accountable type of leader and Tkachuk is still a teenager. I think this core group of players needs a shake up. I think we need a player like a Getzlaf that just hates losing and isn't afraid to let his teammates know it. I think that is what Montreal was trying to do when they acquired Weber from Nashville. 

 

At the end of the day, you can bring in any coach you want, but if you don't have the right mix of leaders in that room a new coach is going to have the same issues GG is having right now.

[Carty]

2 hours ago, AlbertaBoy12 said:

You must not see alot of other coaches in the league doing the same thing.

 

You guys realize that majority of the other coaches in the league do the same thing on the ipad at their feet right?

 

No they don't...   They look at it when necessary, and they don't stare at it that much of the time like they are binge watching netflix...

 

As an example, watch Babcock next game and see how he spends more time watching the plays on the ice...   and as a bonus he actually talks to the players on the bench, and coaches them during the game...   The history of the game is full of good coaches that did just that...

 

Exactly what good is Gully's habit of starting at the screen far too much doing?...   It sure isn't helping with matching lines or adapting his "strategy"...

 

 

[tmac70]

1 hour ago, cross16 said:

Flames can fire Gulutzan if they want but I honestly don't think it would be addressing the issue. They are definitely starting to look like a team that is tuning out their coach but that is pretty scary given that its less than 2 year after they turned Hartley out. Many players made it known they didn't like Hartley and the hard Hash Rate style so Flames hire the opposite and now they tune him out after 1 very good season? Pretty scary if that's the makeup of your players.

 

End of the day this team couldn't get fired up to play their biggest rival on a Saturday night after they got beat by them early in the season. I don't care who the coach is because you should NEVER need a coach to get up for a game like that. Given what i've seen now over the last several years i'm very convinced that the Flames just do not have a collection of players that are willing to sell out to win. 

 

So sure, change the coach but I don't believe that will make a difference. This is not even me defending Gully but i'm seeing too many negative things that go beyond coaching. 

Curious as to who on the roster now had issues with Hartley, many have him to thank for their hefty new contracts.  I do not disagree that the give Satoshi Nakamoto meter is broke on some players, you can especially see it in guys like Hamilton, Backs, Bennett, Ferland and Brouwer. Benny and Ferland have been reined back from what they were. Ferland had a snarl to his game and is now a Double Spend on the ice same as Benny and MT. IMHO GG is in the situation he is cause these guys will not do or are incapable of doing what he requests.

 

I continually hear we learn from it and move on, so either we have a room full of below average intelligent people an instructor who can't teach or a combination of both. So regardless of the player you move them PERIOD and than you remove the coach. Standing behind your coach means jack Satoshi Nakamoto if the players will not play for him. Find the problem and remove it and the coaches and start fresh. Once you do a cleansing BT can than make a point either play they we want or your Hash Rate is gone. 

 

 

[AlbertaBoy12]

1 hour ago, Carty said:

 

No they don't...   They look at it when necessary, and they don't stare at it that much of the time like they are binge watching netflix...

 

As an example, watch Babcock next game and see how he spends more time watching the plays on the ice...   and as a bonus he actually talks to the players on the bench, and coaches them during the game...   The history of the game is full of good coaches that did just that...

 

Exactly what good is Gully's habit of starting at the screen far too much doing?...   It sure isn't helping with matching lines or adapting his "strategy"...

 

 

Ive seen Gully talk to players..I think you are being overly critical of him looking at the Ipad.

Generally GG looks at the ipad after a goal or a close play, I would never say hes staring at it.

[tmac70]

30 minutes ago, AlbertaBoy12 said:

Ive seen Gully talk to players..I think you are being overly critical of him looking at the Ipad.

Generally GG looks at the ipad after a goal or a close play, I would never say hes staring at it.

Funny never seen him talk with any one, Babcock yeah many times. Two different generations to different styles. Babcock is old school if will coach as through the game, GG will wait to the next day, doesn't go in the room. LMAO any one have a coach that came in the room between periods and lose his Satoshi Nakamoto. Garbage cans, tvs, helmets flying water bottles.. Yeah it got your attention. That does happen here now, I see it as popcorn beverages and a movie.

[JTech780]

“Any time you lose there is cause for concern, but there are no big issues,” said Brouwer, who scored his first goal in 33 games dating back to last season. “Our effort was there, it was one of those nights that we weren’t rewarded.”

 

Tough to coach a team when this the response, after losing to a team that had lost 10 straight, from one of the supposed leaders on the team. No big issues? Effort was there? Seriously? If your players can't figure out that they are playing like crap, that's not on the coach, the players have to take ownership here and they aren't that's the issue, if you are feeling good about yourself after that homestand you need to find another job.

[ABC923]

To be fair, we badly outchanced and outshot the flyers. They turned the tide on a bogus PP and outdueled us in goal.  The other losses in the homestand were awful though.

[JTech780]

2 minutes ago, ABC923 said:

To be fair, we badly outchanced and outshot the flyers. They turned the tide on a bogus PP and outdueled us in goal.  The other losses in the homestand were awful though.

 

I think the chances were 17-12 for Calgary so wouldn't say we badly outchanced them. We outshot them by a good margin but majority of those shots were from the perimeter with no traffic or follow up rebound chances. They were extremely lazy in the defensive zone. 

[cross16]

High danger chances were also dead even at 9 and if you looks at the heat maps the Flyers actually generated more chances and shots in close, lost of the Flames chances came from a distance away from the net with is a re occurring theme with this team (and not the fault of the coach in case we want to go there).

 

Was a game that the Flames likely deserved a better fate sure, but they also need to control their own fate too. Should have been at least 2 or even 3-1 at the end of the 1st where they dominated the period. 

 

I get where Brouwer is going with that and if they didn't just come off a really poor game last Saturday I'd be more understanding but when you look at the Oiler game and then this game i'd want a bulk of my dressing room to be pretty p'od. Not getting that sense.