Calgary Flames unveil Ryan Huska as team's new head coach

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Ryan Huska’s backyard looks great. 

The best it has ever looked, probably. 

After he finished his second interview for the Calgary Flames head coaching job with GM Craig Conroy, all Huska could do was wait and see if an offer would follow. 

It took three long, stressful days before one finally came. 

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At a news conference announcing him as the new Flames bench boss, Huska explained that working in his yard was the key to staying sane as he waited to hear from Conroy. 

“You’re always hoping you’re going to hear something sooner rather than later, whether it’s a yay or a nay,” Huska said. “It was quiet for a day, and you think there’s still probably lots going on, and then it’s quiet for another day, so then I found myself on the third day power-washing the stones in my backyard for like six hours.  

“I don’t have a weed in that yard right now.” 

Huska does, however, have a new job title. 

He’s the second prominent internal hire the Flames have made since the end of a disappointing 2022-23 regular season after they promoted Conroy to replace Brad Treliving as general manager last month. 

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Getting a new head coach in place was Conroy’s top priority and he eventually settled on Huska after an extensive search that was narrowed down to 15 candidates and then cut down again to a final four that also included Calgary Wranglers head coach Mitch Love.

Huska, though, ticked every box. Conroy praised the power-point presentation that the 47-year-old brought to his interview and the detailed video breakdowns he used to explain how the Flames can prevent their opponents from getting high-risk offensive opportunities.

Huska’s vision for how to move the team onwards and upwards happened to align closely with the way Conroy sees things, as well. 

“I think the last time I was hear I mentioned the importance in what I was looking for in a coach, I wanted a good communicator, a leader, someone who can inspire this group and play sound, defensive hockey with structure and then on the offensive side I wanted our guys to be creative and kind of take it to the next level offensively,” Conroy said. “They’re so skilled nowadays, all the guys, you want to let them have that free reign and do what they do best, which is hopefully score lots of goals.  

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“As we kind of narrowed the search down, it became more and more clear to me that Ryan and I had the same vision.” 

Huska brings a wealth of experience to his new gig and is familiar to anyone who has followed the Flames organization over the past decade. 

He has served as an assistant coach for the Flames since 2018, working under Bill Peters, Geoff Ward and Darryl Sutter. 

Before that, though, he was the head coach of the Flames’ AHL affiliate starting in 2014-15 and helped guide the careers of several of the team’s current core of NHLers, including Rasmus Andersson, Andrew Mangiapane and Oliver Kylington. 

Before that, he was the head coach of the Kelowna Rockets, guiding the team to the Memorial Cup final in 2009 after they won the WHL crown. 

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Then-assistant coach Ryan Huska of the Calgary Flames talks with his players during a time-out in an NHL game against the Winnipeg Jets at the Scotiabank Saddledome on February 9, 2021.

It has been a long journey to his first NHL head coaching job, but Huska believes that might have been exactly what he needed to get him to the place where he’s truly ready for the job. 

“With my time here in Calgary, I’ve been fortunate enough to work with some very good coaches. All the coaches have had different philosophies, different means of communication, different ways of looking at the game,” Huska said. “Because of that experience I have had within this organization, I am 100 per cent confident that I’m ready for this challenge. 

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“The second thing is I know these players, and I look at that as a positive thing. There is a lot of good people in our dressing room and excellent hockey players who want to win and will do everything they can to succeed. I am a big believer in that group of people and their ability, and my job now as the head coach is to make sure I push them every day to get the best version of them and also try to push them to another level, both as individuals and as a team.“

More to come …

1. Meet Ryan Huska, the Flames’ next head coach
2. Can Conroy and Huska sway this Significant Seven to stay with the Flames?
3. Analyzing Ryan Huska’s candidacy to be Flames’ next head coach

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