Gulutzan fired as coach of Flames

CALGARY-- Glen Gulutzan was fired as coach of the Calgary Flames on Tuesday.

"Ultimately, you are what your record says you are, but I felt in order to get our team to the level it needs to get to, and each individual to the level he needs to get to, that we had to make this decision," Calgary general manager Brad Treliving said.
The Flames were 37-35-10, fifth in the Pacific Division, and missed the Stanley Cup Playoffs by 11 points after making it in Gulutzan's first season.
Calgary's home record of 17-20-4 was the fourth-worst in the NHL, and their power play, at 16.0 percent, was tied for 28th. The Flames also scored an NHL-low 61 third-period goals.
"We underperformed," Treliving said. "When you go through the process of underperforming, you pull everything. It starts with myself, player decisions, personnel decisions. You go into the players' performance, who played well, who didn't and why?"

Gulutzan, who had one year remaining on his contract, was hired by the Flames on June 17, 2016 to replace Bob Hartley. Calgary went 45-33-4 to finish as the first wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs in the Western Conference last season. The Flames were swept by the Anaheim Ducks in the first round.
The 46-year-old was 82-68-14 in two seasons with Calgary and in four NHL seasons (Dallas Stars, 2011-13) is 146-125-23.
Assistant coaches Dave Cameron and Paul Jerrard were also fired.
"Glen's a good coach," Treliving said. "Glen is a wonderful person. We didn't get our team to the point that I felt we needed to. I thought we underperformed. I thought we had a group of players underperform. There's parts of our game, when you look at certain special teams, that underperformed. You look back and say, 'How do we get it there?' I concluded that to get us there, we needed to make a change."