Over the next few weeks leading up to the 2024–25 season, I’ll be taking a look at the best and worst of the Calgary Flames throughout history. I started with the best and worst Flames coaches. Next up is the general managers.
The Flames have had 10 general managers across their 44-year history, with some lasting much longer than others. Unfortunately, when a team has had as little success as the Flames have had as an organization, you’re not going to find many successful general managers in the team’s history books.
Who is the best general manager in Calgary Flames history? Who is the worst? Let’s break it down.
The worst general managers in Flames history
Craig Button
Regular Season Record (195) 88–107–40–16 (.461 Win%)
Playoff Appearances – 0
If there’s a worst evaluator of talent out there, I’ve yet to see one. Craig Button is infamous for all the wrong reasons in Calgary. If it weren’t for some of his more puzzling moves, the 2000s Flames would’ve experienced much more success. Hired in June of 2000, Button managed the team for three seasons before being fired in 2003. Across those three years the Flames won just 88 games and missed the playoffs all three times.
Despite coming from a scouting background, the Button-led Flames were historically poor at drafting. Across his two drafts in charge of the team, the Flames made 23 selections to little success. Of those 23 selections, 16 never played a single NHL game and only four played in 200 games as a Flame. In particular, Button whiffed on the 10th overall pick in 2002 selecting Eric Nystrom who played just three seasons in Calgary.
As if his drafting wasn’t poor enough, his trading and asset management was somehow worse. Button completed a trio of preposterous moves during his tenure that set the Flames back years and perhaps even decades. Just three days into his tenure, Button would trade young goaltender J.S. Giguere for a second-round pick who he used on Matt Pettinger. Then a month later, he placed Martin St. Louis on waivers to complete one of the worst months in general manager history.
He wasn’t finished there though. A couple years later Button would ship out talented centre Marc Savard for unknown Russian prospect Ruslan Zaynullin who never played in North America after the trade. The worst part is Savard was traded due to a feud with then coach Greg Gilbert, who Button then ended up firing anyway shortly after trading Savard. Across the board, Button was a terrible general manager who made one bad decision after another.
Darryl Sutter
Regular Season Record – (529) 275–194–7–53 (.577 Win%)
Playoff Appearances – 5
Don’t let the impressive regular season record and amount of playoff appearances fool you, Darryl Sutter was a disaster as a general manager. As good as he was behind the bench, he never should’ve set foot in the press box. From some of the worst drafting in franchise history to a plethora of puzzling trades, Sutter was one of the main culprits behind the wasted Jarome Iginla era in Calgary. Hired on as general manager in April of 2003, Sutter would end up being the third-longest tenured general manager in history before being fired in December of 2010.
First off, Sutter was historically terrible at drafting. Across his seven-year tenure, the Flames made 58 selections at the draft, and only seven of those 58 picks signed a second contract in Calgary. In particular, during the 2005 and 2006 drafts, Sutter selected 16 players—none of which would ever play 20 games as a Flame. Only two players he selected during his seven years went on to play 250 games as a Flame. His obsessions with size, grit and the WHL led the Flames to one of the worst prospect pools in the league.
In terms of asset management, Sutter wasn’t much better. Whether it was acquiring and then moving on from Olli Jokinen on multiple occasions, shipping out Dion Phaneuf for spare parts, or trading second-round picks like he was allergic to them, Sutter was rarely good at managing assets. To his credit, he did acquire Miikka Kiprusoff early into his tenure which turned out to be one of the best deals in Flames history.
All said, Sutter failed to ever build on the 2003–04 season and instead took the Flames backwards over the next seven years to the point where it took years to clean up his mess.
The best
Cliff Fletcher
Regular Season Record (880) 451–305–124 (.583 Win%)
Playoff Appearances – 11
No general manager spent a longer time in Calgary or experienced more success than Cliff Fletcher. He led the most successful era of Calgary Flames hockey from their move to Calgary in 1980 all the way until 1991. During that time the team made the playoffs 11 straight times, including two trips to the Stanley Cup final, and of course the franchise’s only Stanley Cup championship. The length of his success as the general manager of the Flames will likely never be repeated.
Here are just some of the names Fletcher drafted during his time in charge of the Flames: Al MacInnis, Mike Vernon, Dan Quinn, Sergei Makarov, Gary Suter, Brett Hull, Paul Ranheim, Gary Roberts, Joe Niuewendyk, Theo Fleury, and Robert Reichel. There’s a reason the Flames were a juggernaut during the 1980s, and it was in large part due to Fletcher’s drafting.
Fletcher quite literally built the Flames’ 1989 Cup-winning team through the draft, regularly hitting on later-round picks. In case you were counting, he drafted a total of five Hall of Famers in the 1980s.
He also nailed some trades as well. Fletcher acquired the likes of Joe Mullen, Lanny McDonald, and Doug Gilmour during the 1980s, all of whom played major roles in the Flames’ 1989 season and ended up in the Hall of Fame. Even more impressive is the fact that in all three deals he shipped out almost nothing of value when it was all said and done. There was of course the Brett Hull trade that ended up helping the Flames win the Cup in 1989, but also saw them trade one of the best players in NHL history for a couple of short-term veterans. Fletcher has gone on record many times in saying he never regrets that deal because the Flames wouldn’t have won the Cup without it.
All-time managers
The sad truth is the Flames have struggled to find strong general managers across their history. What they haven’t struggled to do is find bad ones. Fletcher remains the only homerun hire at the general manager position, with every other name either just staying afloat during their tenure, or completely sinking. Here’s hoping Craig Conroy follows in Fletcher’s footsteps and becomes an all-time great in Calgary.
