T1B

News conference to be held tommorrow.

Nice timing... after everyone else has found a seat, Sutter decides that he doesn't want to coach.

Damnnnnnnnnn.

I thought his top assistant (and former Kalamazoo Wings head coach) Jim Playfair was going to be his replacement when he decided to step down and focus on being GM.

Ever since Sutter took the GM job with the Flames, he maintained that within a couple years he would relinquish one of his jobs, and it wasn't going to be the GM role.

This is no surprise, other than the fact that it was this year. I thought he'd coach for one more year.

But Jim Playfair has been in line to take the head coaching position all along, and the guy is a great coach. He'll do a good job. He won the Calder Cup with a rag tag group of Saint John Flames a few years back, and he's been the leader of the Flames defense for the past few years, helping develop guys like Regehr into the player he is.

I really can't see such a competitive guy as Sutter watching someone else coach his team.

Tim G wrote:I really can't see such a competitive guy as Sutter watching someone else coach his team.

Sutter puts trust in people though. In this case, with the amount of energy required for both jobs, having trust in someone to coach the team is almost his only choice. He's long talked about how he regrets not being able to scout players himself as the GM, though. Now he'll be able to do that.