The NHL’s game of head-coaching musical chairs has come to an end.
Glen Gulutzan, a former assistant with the Vancouver Canucks, has been named the new head coach of the Calgary Flames.
Now all of the league’s vacant head coaching spots have been filled.
A former minor-league player, Gulutzan, 44, has worked his way up the coaching ranks over the last 13 years.
He served as head coach and general manager of the ECHL’s Las Vegas Wranglers from 2003 to 2009 before running the AHL Texas Stars’ bench from 2009 to 2011.
In June of 2011, Gulutzan inherited the Dallas Stars‘ head coaching job following the team’s dismissal of head coach Marc Crawford at the conclusion of the 2010–11 season. He was fired by the Stars on May 14, 2013, after posting a 64-57-9 record and failing to make the playoffs in two NHL seasons.
On July 3, 2013, he landed an assistant job in Vancouver, where he has served under John Tortorella and Willie Desjardins.
Flames GM Brad Treliving fired head coach Bob Harley on May 3, weeks after the club failed to make the playoffs.
Under Hartley in 2015-16, the Flames posted a 35-40-7 record — a 20-point backslide from Calgary’s surprising run to Round 2 of the playoffs in 2014-15.
“Bob has taken this team as far as I feel he can take it,” Treliving said upon the firing. “I felt for us to move forward as an organization, it was time, it was important, it was critical we made this decision.”
Associate coach Jacques Cloutier was also fired, but assistant Martin Gelinas, goaltending coach Jordan Sigalet and video coach Jamie Pringle will return next season.
