Calgary Flames GM figures coaching hire Glen Gulutzan is 'perfect fit'

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The deal is done, the man now minted as head coach of the Calgary Flames.

The haggling, however, continues.

“They still owe me a pizza or something,” charged Glen Gulutzan — with a toothy grin — after Friday’s introductory press conference at the Saddledome.

Gulutzan, a former skipper for the Dallas Stars and an assistant coach for the Vancouver Canucks for the past three winters, was hungry for a second shot to run a bench at the National Hockey League level.

But during a six-hour sit-down with the Flames’ hockey-ops higher-ups — Brian Burke, Brad Treliving, Craig Conroy and Brad Pascall — in Calgary, he would have appreciated a nibble. A snack, of any sort.

At 12:30 p.m. that day, with just a bowl of Cheerios in his belly, Gulutzan started to answer their questions and share his insights.

At 6:34 p.m., with his stomach really grumbling, he raced back to the airport for a flight out.

“And that’s a true story — I had two Gatorades and they fired me back on the plane,” Gulutzan said. “I was like, ‘Whoa, they’re really grilling me here.’ ”

“I didn’t know it went that long,” Treliving insisted a few minutes later. “We were just trying to starve him out and see if we could wear him down a little bit. I kinda felt bad after that.”

Gulutzan, though, was feeling good.

Because in addition to the hunger pains, the 44-year-old headed home with a gut instinct that he might be the right man for the Flames.

“Maybe I was hallucinating.”

He wasn’t.

The feeling was mutual.

“It became very clear, meeting with Glen early, that this is a perfect match,” Treliving said. “This is an individual who is smart. He’s intelligent about the game, tactically and structurally. The interpersonal skills are what jumped out to me — his ability to communicate to people, his ability to drive players.

“And as we did our homework, the one thing that kept coming back … We talked to all sorts of people that were around Glen in certain areas, certain times of his life, certain stops, and it was not only the coach but the person that was drilled home. A very, very special person. A very special coach.”

The hiring of Gulutzan — by Treliving’s own admission “one of Calgary’s worst-kept secrets over the last couple of days” — was made official Friday morning.

In the coming weeks, he’ll rack up even more Air Miles as he arranges for a face-to-face chat with each member of his skating staff.

“You have to build relationships, and I think when you build trust and you build relationships, you get something that is long-lasting and you create an emotional bank account with players,” Gulutzan said. “If you’ve got a good bank account, you can withdraw from that account. If you need to push and prod and yell … Whatever it is you’re going to do with those players, if you have a good base, you have a good trust, you can push them a long way, and they will play better.”

If the Flames had played better last season, Bob Hartley would probably still be bench boss at the Saddledome.

Instead, Gulutzan inherits a group that stumbled to a 35-40-7 mark last season — scroll down to 26th to find them in the 30-team standings — after an improbable run to the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs in the spring of 2015.

The incoming coach had high praise for teenage centre Sam Bennett, who just wrapped his rookie campaign: “I think the sky is the limit with this guy, with that competitiveness and that spirit.”

He raved about the YouTube-type skill-set of superstar left-winger Johnny Gaudreau: “There’s not much I’m going to do for him offensively. He’s creative and that’s dynamic and God-given, and we’ll just facilitate that, but we’ll ask him to do some other things to make him a better player.”

He repeatedly referred to the Flames’ stable of blueliners — “A really good young base is what I see here, anchored by a defence” — and made numerous mentions of first-line middleman Sean Monahan.

“For me, it’s a team that’s on the cusp,” Gulutzan said. “It’s a team that’s exciting. You have good veterans. I’ve heard nothing but good about the locker-room. Young guys are great, but they need to be surrounded by good veterans in this league. It’s still a man’s league. I think we’ve got a good mix of that. We hope to take advantage of that.”

The Flames, on the other hand, figure they’ve found a coach on the cusp.

And not just the cusp of starvation.

“I think this is his time now,” Treliving said. “Where our team is, the makeup of our team, the makeup of this individual … I think it’s a great fit.”

wgilbertson@postmedia.com

On Twitter: @WesGilbertson

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