Calgary Flames made progress this season says Darryl Sutter

The Calgary Flames made progress on and off the ice in a difficult season, says head coach Darryl Sutter.

“Our objective was to be a playoff group and we did that,” Sutter mentioned Wednesday on the Saddledome.

“The one means you may turn out to be a Stanley Cup champion is to make the playoffs time and again and time and again and construct on that. That is a 4, six-year factor. I have been via that and carried out it, and failed at it, each, so I do know.”

Of their first full season below Sutter since his rehire in March 2021, the Flames (50-21-11) topped the Pacific Division and gained a playoff spherical for simply the second time since he navigated them to the Stanley Cup closing again in 2004.

Calgary’s core gamers have been brief on post-season success heading into the 2021-22 season. 

Beating the Dallas Stars in additional time in a Recreation 7 to advance, and feeling the sting of a five-game exit within the second run by the hands of the Edmonton Oilers, have been each milestones, the coach mentioned.

“It was a great expertise for them and it is good that it hurts on the finish as a result of then they perceive it higher,” Sutter mentioned. 

“There’s guys that had performed one spherical and gained one sport so they do not get that a lot about it. The following step is the subsequent step.”

An enforced 20-day break in December when the COVID-19 virus swept via the Flames backloaded their schedule with 31 video games in 61 days in March and April.

“Positively an element,” Sutter mentioned. “Ensure that we’re a better-trained group, that is for positive. 

“That was an enormous step for us final summer time and thru the season, however in the long run, as a lot as our group improved, we’ve got gamers that should take one other step in that with a purpose to turn out to be higher gamers.”

A finalist this 12 months for the Jack Adams Trophy that goes to the NHL’s high coach, Sutter got here out of what appeared to be head-coaching retirement to return to the Flames.

After successful Stanley Cups with the Los Angeles Kings in 2012 and 2014, the 63-year-old from Viking, Alta., was an adviser to the Anaheim Geese’ teaching workers when the Flames introduced him again into the fold.

Sutter took the job as a result of he did not like the way in which the Flames have been enjoying. He thought they’d fallen behind different groups of their division. The Flames earned a measure of respect this season, he mentioned.

“Simply assembly the requirements which might be essential to get some respect again as a corporation, as a participant again, as a group again within the league, I feel that is actually essential,” Sutter mentioned.

“For me, 100 per cent is having the ability to exit and speak to the followers about it as a result of they know and so they get it. They are not caught up in something that is gossip or not actual.”

Basic supervisor Brad Treliving did not suppose it a coincidence that Johnny Gaudreau, Elias Lindholm, Matthew Tkachuk, Andrew Mangiapane and Dillon Dube all had profession seasons in a full marketing campaign below Sutter.

“He pushes individuals to attain issues and it is not all the time snug,” Treliving mentioned Saturday. “He is introduced construction, he is introduced accountability to this group and the group’s embraced it.

“I feel it could be a crying disgrace if he isn’t named coach of the 12 months. He is carried out a marvellous job.”

With eight gamers headed for unrestricted free company, together with Gaudreau, Sutter cannot do a lot group planning for 2022-23 till the market opens July 13. 

“The query with the final spherical that we performed this 12 months, or the final sport that we performed, crucial half is your group that has to stay collectively, that 23-to-27 age group is crucial half,” Sutter mentioned. 

“Did these guys present progress? As a result of they’re the fellows that the group usually has below contract or has rights to.”

Calgary’s American Hockey League affiliate, the Stockton Warmth, open their best-of-seven Western Convention closing Friday in opposition to the Chicago Wolves.

This report by The Canadian Press was first revealed June 1, 2022