Huska hired as coach of Flames, replaces Sutter

Ryan Huska was hired as coach of the Calgary Flames on Monday.

The 47-year-old, who was an assistant with Calgary for the past five seasons, replaces Darryl Sutter, who was fired May 1. He will be a head coach for the first time in the NHL.

"I know these players, and I look at that as a positive thing," Huska said. "There is a lot of good people in our dressing room and there are excellent hockey players who want to win, and they will do anything they can to succeed. I am a big believer in that group of people and their ability, and my job now as a head coach is to make sure I push them every day to get the best version of them and also to try to push them to another level both as individuals, and as a team."

Huska oversaw the defense and penalty kill. The Flames allowed 27.3 shots-against per game, third-fewest in the NHL, and were tied with the New Jersey Devils for fourth in penalty killing (82.6 percent) this season.

"When I looked around and said, 'What am I looking for and who would be the best fit?' it really became clear the last four or five days that Ryan was the guy," Calgary general manager Craig Conroy said. "I feel like he's put his time in, he's done everything he can, the only thing he hasn't gotten is the chance to be an NHL head coach, and now he is.

"I wanted a good communicator, a leader, someone who can inspire this group, play sound defensive hockey with structure, and then on the offensive side I wanted our guys to be creative and take it to the next level offensively because they're so skilled nowadays, all the guys. You want to let them have that free reign and go about doing what they do best, and hopefully that's scoring a lot of goals. As we narrowed the search down, it became more and more clear to me that Ryan and I had the same vision."

RELATED: [Huska comfortable, confident in ability to lead Flames as coach]

Huska began his coaching career as an assistant for Kelowna of the Western Hockey League in 2002 and was named coach in 2007. The Flames hired Huska as coach of Adirondack of the American Hockey League in 2014-15, where he helped develop current Flames defensemen Rasmus Andersson and Oliver Kylington, and forward Andrew Mangiapane.

The Cranbrook, British Columbia, native played one NHL game, for the Chicago Blackhawks in 1997-98, after they selected the forward in the third round (No. 76) of the 1993 NHL Draft. He also played in the WHL, where he won the Memorial Cup with Kamloops three times (1992, 1994, 1995), and the International Hockey League (Indianapolis) and AHL (Lowell and Springfield) before retiring after the 1999-00 season.

"I was told at a young age you've got two eyes and two ears for a reason, and for my coaching career I remembered that," said Huska, who has been an assistant under Sutter, Geoff Ward and Bill Peters. "With my time here in Calgary I've been fortunate enough to work with some very good coaches. All coaches have had different philosophies, different means of communication, different ways they look at the game, and because of that experience that I have had here within this organization, I am 100 percent confident I'm ready for this challenge."

The Flames (38-27-17) failed to qualify for the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the second time in three seasons, finishing two points behind the Winnipeg Jets for the second wild card from the Western Conference. They fired general manager Brad Treliving on April 17 and promoted Conroy from assistant GM on May 23.

Calgary was 50-21-11 and won the Pacific Division in 2021-22 but lost to the Edmonton Oilers in five games in the second round.

The Flames, who haven't advanced past the second round of the playoffs since losing to the Tampa Bay Lightning in seven games in the 2004 Stanley Cup Final, averaged 3.15 goals per game (19th), down from 3.55 (sixth) last season, and the power play fell from 22.9 percent (10th) to 19.8 percent (tied for 19th).

"There's always unhappiness when you don't win," Huska said. "We'll say that no matter what the situation is. That's the one beauty of all this is the players that had good years last year, the players that, to their own minds, didn't have years they wanted to, it is a fresh start. That is something that's cool because there is a different energy around the rink, there's a different level of optimism.

"When you have that and you have good relationships with people coming in, there's an excitement and there's a buzz, and that's what you want because you want a group of guys that are coming back fired up and ready to go. From there, we're going to work every day to make sure we're going to connect them as a team."

After Husky's hire, two NHL teams remain without a coach: the Columbus Blue Jackets and New York Rangers. The Washington Capitals hired Spencer Carbery on May 30 and the Nashville Predators named Andrew Brunette coach the next day. Greg Cronin was hired by the Anaheim Ducks on June 5.