A friend of mine asked me earlier this week what I thought of Bob Hartley’s decision to start the Calgary Flames’ fourth line against the Canucks on Saturday night, a decision that ultimately led to a line-brawl two seconds into the game and wound up costing him US$25,000.
The game was a week ago, but its after-effects, including John Tortorella’s six-game suspension and Flames GM Brian Burke’s headline-making statement that, “we all know the Canucks started it”, are still being felt. Like Burke, many are still debating and discussing what happened during that game, so I’ll share the response I gave my friend, and risk the fury of a few readers.
It was brilliant coaching.
Let’s make a few things clear. Bob Hartley works for the Flames, and when all is said and done, he’s paid to coach wins out of his players. That hasn’t been happening much in Calgary lately. Wednesday’s 3-2 victory over Phoenix marked the end of a franchise-worst seven-game home losing streak, and just the team’s third win since before Christmas. Prior to the game in Vancouver, Calgary had scored a pitiful 12 goals in 11 games since the break, getting shut out in six of them.
In their game preceding the Saturday skirmish, the Flames gave up two goals to Winnipeg in the opening eight minutes, eventually losing 5-2. Before that, the common theme in nearly all of the new year’s pre- and post-game interviews with a Calgary player had been the need to overcome scoring troubles and fight against mounting frustration. It’s an alarming sentiment, considering there was more optimism surrounding this club at the start of the season than there has been in a while. Hartley needed to recharge the atmosphere and light a fire under his players, and one would expect Saturday’s antics to have that effect.
Calgary’s status as a rebuilding, non-playoff team is obvious and widely accepted. But that status doesn’t replace accountability with a free pass when it comes to losing, especially not for a coach. In recent weeks, the usual hockey insiders and experts have begun to ponder Hartley’s fate, especially beyond this season. Burke has said he’s pleased with the coaching staff, but he also indicated that Jay Feaster would be part of the organization’s future, and we all saw how that turned out.
And so did Hartley. So he took a risk; a calculated risk. After a poor start in Winnipeg, he wanted a strong one from his team in Vancouver. He was, and still is, eager to buck a trend that has plagued his club for far too long. But that was exactly the risk, because he was trying to do so against a team looking to turn itself around.
The Canucks were playing for a home crowd having lost eight of their last 10, going up against a particularly hated divisional rival who they’d beaten for one of the two wins in their slump. He rolled the dice and rolled his fourth line, creating a sticky situation for a coach whose name is synonymous with hot-headedness (as he proved with his first-intermission theatrics). Hartley’s argument that he started Kevin Westgarth, Brian McGrattan and Blair Jones because he was searching for offence and they’d chipped in against the Jets has obvious cheek, especially since Jones wasn’t even on the ice for the goal he was talking about. But Flames goals are a rarity these days, so his point has more weight than you’d think. Some have said he poked the bear, others are saying the Canucks played right into his hands. Either way, Torts felt threatened and responded in kind, matching what Canuck forward Tom Sestito said his coach called Calgary’s “idiots” with his own.
Since I began by claiming that it was brilliant coaching, I suppose one would want the obvious question answered: did it work?
I would argue that it certainly did. The Flames eventually lost the game, but they scored twice on the man who many have projected to be Team Canada’s starting goalie, and got a point on the road with a shoot-out loss. They also worked hard for two goals in a 3-2 loss in San Jose; finally gave the home crowd something to cheer about with the aforementioned win against the Coyotes; and erased a pair of two-goal deficits for a 5-4 shootout win against Nashville on Friday night. Granted, that’s only a 2-1-1 streak, but it marks the team’s first win-streak since Dec. 12-14, and a better offensive stretch than they’ve had in some time.
And whether or not he expected his tactics to ignite a full-out line-brawl, Hartley also did his team a favour by at least temporarily drawing the media’s attention away from their on-ice struggles. Admittedly, that also depended upon the Flames’ ability to tune out the distractions and capitalize on the opportunity, but that seems to have been the case.
It wasn’t brilliant in the sense that it sparked an instantaneous and miraculous turn-around in his team’s fortunes, but Hartley’s decision to start his fourth line against the Canucks was a creative way to create breathing room in a tight corner, and the Flames have respond positively ever since.
Was it a controversial decision? Undoubtedly. Was it an expensive decision? Certainly. But was it a smart decision? Bob Hartley thought so, and I’d have to agree with him
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