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Flames coach's patience runs thin
By
STEVE MACFARLANE, QMI Agency
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By the time the door to the visitors room opened up after Saturday night’s loss, enough time had passed for the Calgary Flames players to have showered and be putting on their pit-stick before conducting their interviews.
But there they were, still sitting on the benches in their sweaty gear, heads hanging low and voices quiet.
It was pretty clear that before the coaching staff emerged from the room a good 15 minutes or more after losing a 4-3 decision to the San Jose Sharks, they let the players have it.
“There’s two things with me that are important. One is I expect us to compete hard. And I expect us to be an intelligent team, a smart team,” Flames head coach Brent Sutter said before boarding a plane back to Calgary. “If you lack in any one of those areas with me, you have issues with me, because those two things you have to have to be successful.
“If you lack in any one of those, you’re not gonna be successful. These last two games, the intelligent part, we lacked in.
“It cost us some goals and it cost us wins.”
Wins have been hard to come by for the Flames, who have lost six of their last seven.
Time is running out. Sutter’s patience likely is, too.
