Calgary Flames fire head coach Glen Gulutzan and two assistant coaches

In a moment we weren’t quite expecting on this fine Tuesday, the Calgary Flames have relieved head coach Glen Gulutzan, along with two assistant coaches.

Well, this has been a fun Tuesday, hasn’t it? The Calgary Flames have relieved (aka a nicer word for fired) head coach Glen Gulutzan of his duties, along with assistant coaches Paul Jerrard and Dave Cameron. Paul Jerrard served primarily as the penalty-killing coach and Dave Cameron served primarily as the powerplay coach.

All three have been together with the Flames since the start of the 2016-17 season. Dave Cameron was the former head coach of the Ottawa Senators. I was quite surprised they brought him in in the first place as the powerplay coach seeing how the Senators’ PP numbers were never good under him. But they may have not wanted Gulutzan there by himself as the head coach since he didn’t have much head coach experience.

I was fine with Paul Jerrard, I thought he was a good PK coach and recognized who’s good at killing penalties, so I thought if there were to be a coaching change, it would just be maybe Gulutzan and Cameron together.

While I wasn’t completely aboard the Fire Gulutzan train as lots of people on Twitter were, and I didn’t completely hate his coaching style, he did sometimes make it hard to defend his actions. And trust me, I tried a lot. But in the last few months of the season, I somewhat gave up.

His two biggest flaws are his player utilization abilities and that he doesn’t hold veterans accountable. I specifically remember one game where Johnny Gaudreau got taken down and tripped in the offensive zone so the opposing team had a breakaway and won the game in OT. Gulutzan blamed Gaudreau for that goal after the game. But when it comes to players like Troy Brouwer, everything they do slides under the rug.

Other than that, he’s been quite good at not placing blame. I mean, we all remember the “they were pathetic” fiasco, but then the beers saved the season last year.

Next: Johnny Gaudreau to play for Team USA at Worlds

In two seasons with the Calgary Flames, Gulutzan’s record was 82-68-14. To be quite honest, I thought GM Brad Treliving was quite fond of Gulutzan and this firing somewhat took me by surprise, but I’m not completely shocked. I did think they would wait until playoffs were finished, though.