It’s exceedingly rare for an NHL head coach to oversee a team’s teardown and return to contention in the same city.
With Thursday’s announcement that the Calgary Flames had extended head coach Ryan Huska’s contract for two more years, he is set to be an exception.
Huska’s first season, in 2023-24, was burdened by veterans who had no intention of sticking around. Today, the team is significantly younger, and there’s only more youth on the way.
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Huska’s job over the next three campaigns is to make sure those young pieces are ready to lead the Flames back to the promised land. That makes him one of the single-most important figures in the organization’s retool.
“We will be, over the years, getting younger as we go, we’ll be pushing the group to be faster and harder to play against, all that stuff,” Huska explained. “When you look at our group right now, there’s a real impact from some of our younger players (Connor Zary, Dustin Wolf, Kevin Bahl and Matt Coronato), all those signings are younger players that are important for us and they’re going to have to really start to push from behind.
“You’re going to start to see people like Zayne (Parekh) and (Matvei) Gridin find a way to earn their ice time. They’re guys who are eventually going to take over from people who are setting the standard right now.”
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Make no mistake, Huska is as responsible for setting that standard as anyone. A big part of the reason it was such a no-brainer to extend his contract for another two years beyond the 2025-26 season, though, was the alignment about those standards between Huska, general manager Craig Conroy and ownership.
The Flames intend to try to make the playoffs every year.
They also intend to get younger.
Calgary Flames head coach Ryan Huska goes over drills with players during the first day of the team’s training camp at the Scotiabank Saddledome on Thursday, Sept. 18, 2025.
Finding that balance is the challenge, but the reality is they are unlikely to be contending for the Cup until guys they drafted in 2024, like Parekh and Gridin, and 2025, like Cole Reschny and Cullen Potter, have developed into reliable, impactful day-to-day NHLers.
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And the Flames believe Huska is the right coach to guide them on that journey while maintaining a winning culture and pushing for the post-season year after year.
“You see it right now, you see young guys making a push to make the team,” Conroy explained. “Whether they make the team coming out of camp this year or they’re sprinkled in during the year, it’s the way of the NHL now. For us to get better, we didn’t go out and get UFAs and hit the market, we’re going to have to do this a little bit internally right now. That’s the goal, and I think he’s the right person to lead that.
“I think it sends a message to the team, ‘Hey, he’s the head coach, he’s got the hammer, he’s going to be here for a while and you’re going to need to do what he says.’ “
When it comes to working with young players, Huska’s resume speaks for itself.
Calgary Flames head coach Ryan Huska was photographed following practice at the Scotiabank Saddledome on Friday, Sept. 19, 2025.
He led the Kelowna Rockets to the WHL championship in 2009 and finished his junior coaching career with a 303-164-37 record. He then spent four years with the Flames’ various AHL affiliates, overseeing their prospects’ development, before joining the NHL club as an assistant coach in 2018.
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“I think coming from junior hockey, you don’t make trades to make your team better,” Huska said. “That was one of my marching orders when I was first hired there, it’s your job as a coach to make these players into good players and turn them into a team. It’s been much the same as you go. It’s not easy for general managers to add people to their team; the job of the coaching staff is to make sure you take the pieces and find a way to help them improve their game in a way that will help the team. I still think it’s critical for a team’s success, especially one like ours.
“If we want to (reach) that next level, a lot of that growth is coming from within, that’s the way we look at it, and once we see that growth happening then really things snowball on you.”
In three years, the Flames are going to look very different. They’ll be younger, for sure.
In Huska, the Flames believe they have the right guy in charge to make sure they’ll be better, too.
[SRC] https://ca.news.yahoo.com/extension-head-coach-ryan-huska-211338322.html
