Former Flames Coach Reveals Why Two Stars Really Left

Wednesday, August 26, 2026
Darryl Sutter says he wasn't surprised when Matthew Tkachuk and Johnny Gaudreau both left the Calgary Flames within two months of each other, and he thinks the organization shouldn't have been either.

Speaking on the Cam and Strick Podcast, Sutter, who coached both players in Calgary from 2021 to 2023, offered a blunt explanation for why their departures played out the way they did. 

"The writing was on the wall," Sutter said. "Management should have known right away that those kids weren't coming back. That shouldn't have been a surprise in July. They were both on expiring contracts, and Canada was not their thing."

Coach Who Says He Understood Them

Sutter spoke on the situation as something closer to sympathy than criticism of the players themselves. 

"I had a soft spot for those boys," he said. "Those American kids, they were basically stranded in Canada. Nobody could come see them. They couldn't go out. Friggen Matthew, he'd beat me to the rink in the morning, and he'd stay there all day. There was nothing to go home to. I felt so sorry for those kids."

Both moves drastically reshaped the Flames almost overnight. 

Gaudreau ended up signing a seven-year, $68.25 million deal with the Columbus Blue Jackets as an unrestricted free agent, and Tkachuk was traded to the Florida Panthers shortly after, before signing an eight-year, $76 million extension there. 

Tkachuk went on to win two Stanley Cups in Florida, including a run through Calgary's own provincial rival in Edmonton.

Trend Bigger Than One Team

Sutter pointed to the COVID-19 border restrictions that isolated American players from their families during that stretch, along with tax advantages in certain U.S. markets and the increasing pull for elite American-born talent to play closer to home. 

It's a dynamic that's shown up elsewhere across the league since, with a growing number of American players including Canadian teams on their no-trade lists.

The Flames were coming off a run to the second round of the 2022 playoffs, a loss to the Edmonton Oilers, when both players departed that summer. 

Only in the past year and a half has the organization fully moved on from chasing that core, shifting instead toward the rebuild it's currently in.

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