Flames Extend Bob Hartley

The National Hockey League is abuzz with coaching news nowadays, mostly firings, so for once, here’s some good news.

The Flames signed Bob Hartley to a “multi-year” extension, the club announced today. There’s a presser later this afternoon on the subject.

Hartley’s presently in the third year of his initial deal, signed with his old buddy Jay Feaster. His first season with truncated via the NHL’s lockout of its players, as well as confounded by Feaster figuring out what to do with Jarome Iginla. The team finally pulled the ripcord on a rebuild and, shocker, Hartley was able to get some results.

As of this writing, Hartley’s record with the Flames is 71-79-11. Even with the standings improvements, even more stark is how rapidly the Flames’ (at-times) country club culture has been turned around.

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Not much new news from the press conference. Flames GM Brad Treliving spoke glowingly about his coach and noted that the deal came together pretty quickly once they decided to get a deal done. Hartley noted that his deal was negotiated by Francois Giguere, a former Colorado Avalanche executive and a friend of Hartley’s – the point was that Hartley wanted to focus on the business of the games rather than deal with negotiations on top of that.

There were no additional announcements, but you’ve gotta think that the other two coaches that came in at the same time as Hartley – associate coach Jacques Cloutier and assistant coach Martin Gelinas – are probably also going to get deals sooner or later.