Wranglers to be led by assistant coach Brett Sutter for two weeks after interim coach Joe Cirella’s eye surgery

The Calgary Wranglers have made another temporary change to their coaching staff.

On Friday, the Wranglers announced that interim head coach Joe Cirella has undergone routine eye surgery and has been advised to take a couple weeks off to recover. So Cirella is out for a couple weeks and won’t be headed to Palm Desert, California for the AHL’s All-Star Classic next week to coach Team Pacific.

Replacing Cirella, both on the Wranglers’ bench and at the All-Star Classic for Team Pacific, is assistant coach Brett Sutter. The son of longtime Flames coach Darryl Sutter, 37-year-old Brett Sutter is in his first year of coaching following a lengthy pro career that saw him play 60 NHL games and also establish himself as one of the longest-tenured AHLers in that league’s history with 1,090 games played. He captained three teams – Charlotte, Ontario and the Wranglers – for a combined 10 seasons, which is pretty unique in AHL history.

Sutter retired from playing during the 2024 off-season but, at the encouragement of Flames head coach Ryan Huska, decided to join the Wranglers coaching staff. His duties generally revolve around running the forwards and the power play.

The Wranglers are usually coached by Trent Cull, who’s supported by assistants Cirella and Sutter, goalie coach Mackenzie Skapski and video coach Chandler Biggar. When Flames assistant coach Brad Larsen took a leave of absence for family reasons, Cull was made an interim assistant coach on the NHL club, Cirella became Wranglers interim head coach, and development staffer Martin Gelinas joined the Wranglers staff. With Cirella unavailable for two weeks, Sutter will take over the bench and development staffer Michael Stone will join the Wranglers temporarily.

On one hand, it’s a lot of shuffling on the Wranglers bench for the time being. On the other hand, it’s a nice demonstration of the value of the Flames investing in their developmental apparatus: they have folks like Gelinas and Stone around that can help out when needed and enable the Wranglers to keep rolling along.

The Wranglers, who sit atop the AHL’s overall standings, play in Abbotsford against the Baby Canucks this weekend.

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