It’s time the Calgary Flames made a decision about the team’s permanent head coach. And, from my perspective, it should be Geoff Ward who has a chance to move this team forward.
Focusing on the Positive Rather that the Negative
It’s not that Ward didn’t make errors during the playoffs in the regular season. But then all coaches do. There’s not a coach I have seen during the postseason that I could not critique for some reason – if I tried hard enough. But why try? Why not look at his positive characteristics?
And Ward has many positives. He was able to push Milan Lucic to his best showing in a couple of seasons. He made a strange, but wise, decision about the starting goalie. And, from my perspective Ward certainly protected his players. His coaching decisions might be scrutinized, but he always seemed to have a reason for making them.
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Obviously, it’s much easier to second guess coaching decisions than to make them in real-time: sometimes decisions work; sometimes they don’t. I thought most of Ward’s decisions worked.
Furthermore, to look at Ward’s decisions now, there’s an easy explanation about why the Flames lost to the Dallas Stars. The Stars are a better team, and it’s their year. They seem to have a much stronger team than the Flames and are showing that against a very difficult Vegas Golden Knights team. Who would have thought the Stars would be leading that series two games to one?
Is Something Happening with the Team that We Don’t Know About?
Not deciding to name Ward head coach might mean that there’s something going on with the team that we don’t know about. At the end of August, Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet stated that the Flames wanted to make a quick decision about Ward who took over from Bill Peters during the regular season (in November). As Flames fans know, Peters resigned after allegations of racial abuse from former player Akim Aliu.
To Ward’s credit, Friedman noted, he “came in there under extremely difficult circumstances and really stabilized the team.” I agree.
Friedman also noted, “The Flames have to decide if he’s going to be their coach for next year. I’ve heard that they’re really not going to let this linger and we’re probably going to know in the next week or two what direction they’re going to go in, if it’s going to be Ward or if it’s going to be somebody else.”
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Ward Has the Coaching Experience and Credentials
Ward certainly has strong enough credentials. In his time as the Flames head coach, the 58-year-old Ward had a 24-15-3 regular-season record. Prior to joining the Flames as an assistant coach in 2018, he had been an assistant with the New Jersey Devils and the Boston Bruins. He was awarded the 2002-03 AHL’s Coach of the Year award as the coach of the Hamilton Bulldogs.
So, here we stand a couple of weeks after Friedman’s comments. Still no coach. Doesn’t that make Flames fans wonder what’s up?
It sure does me.
Why would the Flames not offer Ward a chance?
