The Calgary Flames will be entering the 2025-26 season with some expiring contracts, but their head coach won’t be one of them. On Thursday morning, the club announced that they’ve signed head coach Ryan Huska to a two year contract extension. (While not specified in the club’s announcement, the deal extends his tenure as head coach through 2027-28.)

A product of Cranbrook, B.C., the 50-year-old Huska had a pretty decent playing career and has followed it up with a pretty good coaching career so far.

He played four years in the Western Hockey League with the Kamloops Blazers, winning three WHL Championships and three Memorial Cups – two of which were alongside Jarome Iginla. Drafted by Chicago in 1993, he went pro in 1995 and spent five seasons primarily in the minor-league American and International Leagues, though he did play one game with the Blackhawks in 1995-96.

He hung up his skates in 2000, then retrieved them a couple years later when he went into coaching as an assistant with the WHL’s Kelowna Rockets. Since then, he’s progressed fairly well up the coaching ladder:

Essentially, he’s hit every way-station you would hope a coach would hit on their way to becoming an NHL bench boss, including gaining some World Junior experience on Team Canada’s bench. He was recently part of Canada’s World Championship staff as well, and finished 11th in Jack Adams voting this past season.

He’s in a really unique position in terms of where the Flames’ progression is going because he’s coached a ton of the club’s key players on their way up through the AHL and as an assistant in the NHL, so there’s a level of familiarity and credibility with Huska and his players. And similarly, Huska knows the dynamics of coaching younger players, and so he knows when to push and knows when to have a softer hand, and he’s relied on the club’s leadership group to help steer the ship.

Based on how the club has moved forward over the first two years of his tenure, it’s hard to find big criticisms of his approach. We’ll see how things progress over his next three seasons behind the bench.

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