Five years ago, the Calgary Flames had one of the NHL's best teams, and it all culminated in a second-round matchup with the Edmonton Oilers in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, one that ended in defeat, sending the team into a long winded rebuild.
Only in the past 18 months have the team finally accepted that, but in the four years since, the Flames have been slowly moving away from that core, one which lost its Championship window with the departure of Johnny Gaudreau in free agency and Matthew Tkachuk via a trade with the Florida Panthers.
Darryl Sutter Addresses Gaudreau and Tkachuk Departures
Those departures left many in Calgary with a heavy heart, but in his latest interview on the Cam and Strick Podcast, their Head Coach at the time Darryl Sutter has revealed why their departures should have come as no surprise.
"The Flames should have known those guys were leaving. Canada was not their thing."Darryl Sutter
Darryl Sutter with the emotionally intelligent cut from the top rope!!!
— Nol (@nolinone) August 18, 2026
The simple clarity of the farmer mind is often mistaken for ignorance.
I hadn’t considered the angle or impact of covid on the Americans here & now it seems so obvious. pic.twitter.com/x9bAOHtGoz
As is well known, Gaudreau was incredibly close with his family, and being kept in Canada due to a worldwide pandemic clearly weighed on him, and while there was still an opportunity to extend him with the organization, when he headed towards free agency, going closer to home was always the move he was going to make.
As for Tkachuk, he made it clear that the weather and culture in Canada was not something he wanted to be a part of long-term, with the warm weather in Florida suiting him much better, but once again, this is a situation that could have been avoided with a long-term deal, rather than the bridge contract the team offered him.
Can the Flames Trust American Prospects Moving Forward?
Their departure led to a years long debate over whether or not the Flames should draft Americans, and for two straight drafts in 2023 and 2024, the team didn't draft a single player from the United States. In recent times, that stance has softened under GM Craig Conroy, who seemingly believes that a good young core will convince anyone to stay, and with the drafting of Ethan Wyttenbach, Cullen Potter and Jack Hextall in the last 18 months, he proved his confidence in that fact.
Still, there are Flames fans that are wary of Americans in the organization, with Noah Hanifin forcing a trade to the Vegas Golden Knights in the years following this move, but as Sutter states in his interview, nobody should have been surprised about this move.
Ultimately, these two were unique, individual cases, and while it broke the hearts of many fans to see them leave, the organization should have seen it coming, with two of the franchises best ever young players departing in such heartbreaking fashion.
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