Flames head coach Ryan Huska finished 11th in Jack Adams voting

The 49-year-old Huska became head coach of the Flames prior to the 2023-24 season, and helped them navigate a chaotic season that featured 82 games of twists, turns, trade rumours and, ultimately, major departures – including Nikita Zadorov, Chris Tanev, Noah Hanifin and Elias Lindholm. (Andrew Mangiapane and Jacob Markstrom followed in the off-season.) In 2024-25, the Flames entered the season with a roster that was arguably worse on paper than their 2023-24 edition. However, with far less noise around the team – nobody seemed concerned that anybody was on the way out – they simply played hockey for 82 games and tried to find ways to win.

Huska did not have a ton of firepower on his roster, so he had his team play a structured, patient defensive style. Huska had an untested rookie goaltender in Dustin Wolf, and his coaching staff devised a way to ease him into regular NHL duty. And once it became apparently that Wolf was pretty damn good, Huska and his staff leaned heavily upon him at key moments – and utilized backup netminder Dan Vladar tactically to keep Wolf at his best.

When the 2024-25 season began, much of the hockey establishment had the Flames pencilled in for the draft lottery mix. It wasn’t a question of if the Flames would struggle, but how much they would struggle, and how close to the league’s basement they would be.

The Flames ended up missing the Stanley Cup playoffs by the regulation wins tiebreaker.

Wolf, a Calder Trophy finalist, definitely deserves a ton of credit for helping the Flames finish way higher in the standings than anyone anticipated. But don’t forget to give ample credit to Huska, as the NHL’s broadcasters have, for his big part in devising a game plan that got the Flames to within a whisker of a playoff berth.