Sutter’s future in limbo as Flames, GM Treliving part ways

Darryl Sutter’s future as the Calgary Flames’ head coach is up in the air, with new president of hockey operations and interim general manager Don Maloney unwilling to give the veteran bench boss a public vote of confidence.

The Flames announced on Monday that general manager Brad Treliving would not return next season following the expiration of his contract on June 30, despite several offers from the organization. 

“I am reviewing everything in the organization,” Maloney said of Sutter after the Flames (38-27-17) were eliminated from playoff contention last Monday – the second time in three seasons that Calgary failed to qualify for the postseason.

“Management, coaching, players, scouting.”

Sutter, who won the Jack Adams Award as the league’s coach of the year in 2022, had a tumultuous season behind the bench, with reports of friction between him and star newcomers Jonathan Huberdeau and Nazem Kadri.

The 64-year-old Sutter has not spoken publicly since the 2022-23 regular season ended, but he and Maloney will meet this week to discuss his future. Neither Maloney nor Calgary Sports and Entertainment CEO John Bean addressed Treliving and Sutter’s relationship and if that played a factor in Treliving moving on. 

Treliving, 53, began his tenure as Flames GM in April of 2014 and made his most significant acquisitions last summer, trading star forward Matthew Tkachuk to the Florida Panthers for Huberdeau and defenceman MacKenzie Weegar. He also signed Kadri, who won a Stanley Cup with the Colorado Avalanche in 2022.

Sutter was hired by the Flames in March of 2021 and is signed for two more years, after winning Cups with the Los Angeles Kings in 2012 and 2014. He has a 737-530-101-111 NHL regular-season record, including serving as Flames head coach from Dec. 28, 2002 until July 12, 2006 and the team’s GM from April 11, 2003 through Dec. 28, 2010.

“Decisions like this are really difficult, and there’s lots of layers to the onion,” Bean said.

“What we’re not going to do today is peel back the layers of the onion…I’m not going to get into the granularity of this. It’s a tough enough decision today. We’ve got to get our eyes on the horizon and go forward now, versus grinding through that.”

Flames executives were also unwilling to go into details on the contract statuses of other members of the organization. On the management and coaching staffs, only Sutter and Maloney have deals to return next season. Associate coach Kirk Muller, assistant coach Ryan Huska, goalie coach Jason LaBarbera, assistant general manager Craig Conroy, and the team’s analytics staff are all uncertain if they will be back.

“We’re not going through a public list of every staff member,” Bean said.

“We have 300 full-time staff members. We don’t publish when the contracts are up for renewal.”

Maloney will lead the process to determine how the team underperformed so greatly. He sat in on exit interviews last week and is still digesting what players told him.

“We have to do a deep look at how we operate, how we make decisions, and fix it,” he said.

Monday’s press conference offered few specifics beyond Maloney saying that he himself was not the right fit to be the Flames’ full-time general manager, preferring someone younger and more aggressive. He also did not have a timeline on the hiring of a new GM, or if he wants someone with experience or a newcomer in the role.

Whoever replaces Treliving, however, will likely be tasked with running it back next season with the same group of players. A rebuild appears to be firmly off the table.

“You know what we have?” Bean responded, when asked directly about a possible rebuild. 

“We have a Vezina-nominated goalie [Jacob Markstrom, 2022]. I would keep him next year and I can’t wait to see Jacob come back and play next year. And we’ve got a really strong defence…MacKenzie Weegar took some time to kind of get in, but boy the second half of the season, awesome. And we’ve got a great, great lineup that underperformed. So before we start, you used the word not me, I’m not allowed to ever use the word ‘rebuild’, but no.

“We’re not going to overreact here. Take our time. Do the analysis, come up with the next step.”

First, the organization will do a thorough dive into how a season with such high expectations ended without playoff hockey and why yet another high-profile member of the organization has decided to move on. Star forwards Johnny Gaudreau and Tkachuk also informed the team last season they would not re-sign in Calgary.

Bean pushed back on the notion that the Flames are now an undesirable location of the NHL ecosystem.

“I don’t think we’re going to get into [that] this is some sort of snowball rolling down a hill,” Bean said.

“I think each one of those has individual circumstances and reasons for their decisions…we have a great organization. We have a great city. We have a really good team.”