Glen Gulutzan to Flames: Latest Contract Details, Comments and Reaction

The Calgary Flames announced Friday that they hired Glen Gulutzan as their head coach.

He will fill the vacancy left by Bob Hartley, who was fired in May after the Flames went 35-40-7 for 77 points while missing the playoffs last season. Details of his contract with the Flames have not been disclosed as of yet. 

The 44-year-old Gulutzan has had prior head coaching experience in the NHL, spending two years with the Dallas Stars from 2011 to 2013, as he led the team to a 64-57-9 record. 

After he was fired at the end of the 2012-13 season after not making the postseason, Gulutzan joined the staff of the Vancouver Canucks as an assistant coach, where he's spent the past three years. 

Now, he takes the reins of a Flames team that is loaded with young talent. The team's two leading scorers, Johnny Gaudreau with 30 goals and Sean Monahan with 27, were 22 and 21 years old, respectively, last season. 

On defense, there's a 21-goal scorer in Mark Giordano along with a promising young blueliner in Dougie Hamilton, who celebrated his 23rd birthday Friday. He recorded 43 points during his first year with the Flames after being traded by the Boston Bruins during the 2015 draft. 

Along with other young talent, such as 19-year-old Sam Bennett, who scored 18 goals in his rookie season, Gulutzan sees the youngsters as a cornerstone for something special, per the Flames' official Twitter account: "A really good young base, that's what I see here. ... It's a team on the cusp."

However, Gulutzan will have to address the Flames' problem in goal as they allowed a league-worst 260 goals last season. Three different goalies, Karri Ramo, Jonas Hiller and Joni Orto, appeared in 20 or more games during the season, and none of them had a save percentage better than .909. 

If Gulutzan is able to find a solution to that problem, then the Flames can start building their way up to being a dangerous threat in the Western Conference. 

Stats courtesy of Hockey-Reference.com.