The Flames this season have fired their coach, Bob Hartley. The GM, Brad Treliving, promptly left to go generally manage team Canada at the World Championships.
This has left a void at the head coaching position for a team that should be pushing for the playoffs – as we saw last year – but is still very young and in need of leadership. While other coaches have found jobs, including Bruce Boudreau (Minnesota) and Guy Boucher (Ottawa), the Flames are one of the teams lingering without one, and will continue to do so until Treliving gets back to Calgary.
It must be a little bit anxious to be a Flames fan right now, especially with the ghastly specter that is Randy Carlyle looming large over the still vacant seats.
In the meantime, here are other things Flames fans should be anxious about.
1. The Head Coach
It’s hard to know what needs you need to fill until you know the system. It’s hard to know the system when you don’t have a head coach. That’s why hiring someone will be one of the biggest things Treliving does this summer, and his fortunes will be attached to those of this head coach – he didn’t hire Hartley, but he will hire this man (I wish I could say “or woman” but unfortunately there hasn’t even been an assistant coach who was a woman [still waiting on Amanda Kessel to finish playing] yet).
It will most likely not be Randy Carlyle, but still, knowing who’s coaching going into late June will be important, because the offseason speeds up and we have the draft and free agency right next to each other.
With the success of Mike Sullivan, don’t be surprised if the Flames also go with a minor league coach ready to make the jump. They have a good guy in Stockton, but he may still be a bit young.
2. Extending Johnny & Sean
Two of Calgary’s most solid players are Johnny Gaudreau and Sean Monahan. They are both still young, 22 and 21 respectively, and they will be good for a very long time. If the Flames don’t put forth an adequate offer for each of these players, there will be offer sheets incoming. Especially for Gaudreau. The Flames priority needs to be to these players this offseason, whether it’s before or after finding a coach. These are the future faces of the franchise, and the Flames need to realize this and act quickly. Building this team will be focused on these two.
3. Goaltending
With all four of their goaltenders reaching free agency – that’s right, four: Jonas Hiller, Karri Ramo, Joni Ortio, and Niklas Backstrom – the Flames will have to find two new netminders.
None of these four fit with the Flames system truly, and none of them were very successful this year, despite having one of the best, albeit underperforming defenses. When your defense includes Dougie Hamilton, TJ Brodie, Mark Giordano, and a pre-concussion Dennis Wideman, and you still can’t keep goals out of the net, the problem is not the defense.
While there will be a number of goaltenders available on both markets – free and trade – the Flames will have to choose wisely and find a cheap option for the future and a starter. They need to treat this as an expansion period for them and get good available goaltending. I’ll be the first to say Dallas’s GM Jim Nill will be a popular man if he puts Kari Lehtonen on the market.
4. Depth Offensively
The Flames still have Brandon Bollig playing on their fourth line and have Mason Raymond in the minors. They will need to figure out how to acquire some depth offensively, as the team currently lacks a level of scoring necessary to make the playoffs, and versus the talented net minding in the Pacific division – Jonathon Quick, Frederick Anderson, John Gibson, Louis Domingue, and Cam Talbot – they need to be able to score. Bringing in a good depth wing with the ability to score 10+ goals a season will be important for the Flames.