THE GAME PLAN

Back in the day, Bill Peters recalled fondly, the coaching bunker down at event level of The Joe made for some lively tactical debates.
Not only did Detroit Red Wings bench boss Mike Babcock tolerate open dialogue on the ins-and-outs of game-planning, he encouraged - even relished - a bit of back-and-forth.

"I remember like it was yesterday,'' reminisced Peters, early on the first day of a new job. "It was about the penalty-kill. He was on one side of the fence. I was on the other side of the fence.
"We couldn't come to a common ground.
"So he goes: 'Grab Nick (Lidstrom). Whatever Nick wants to do, that's how we're going to do it.'
"Nick came in and said: 'This is how we'll do it."
Peters leaned back in his chair on the dais at the rear of the Ed Whalen Media Lounge looking like a cat recalling a particularly luxurious bowl of cream.
A wink and a couple of jokey self-satisfied taps on the lapels of his blue suit.
"Guess whose side he took?"
A thumbs up from a seven-time Norris Trophy-receiving/four Stanley Cup-winning defenceman is something a fella doesn't easily forget.
"Demanding without being demeaning" - that's the mandate moving forward as the Flames began the Bill Peters Era with an introductory media conference Monday.
"I'm a pretty positive guy at the end of the day, right?'' promised Peters, who boasts seven years of NHL coaching experience (three as an assistant in Detroit, four as the head man in Carolina). "I want the rink to be a destination where we look forward to coming to work.
"It's fun.
"We play a kids game.
"We're fortunate. We're blessed. Truly blessed. Everyone in the National Hockey League.
"I want guys getting out of bed excited about seeing their buddies, getting out on the ice and enjoying the process."
During the formative part of his introduction, Peters was, by turns, optimistic, ambitious and self-effacing.
When asked to provide a dossier on his coaching strengths, for instance, he hit a return of serve worthy of Roger Federer:
"That's a good question. But I'm not going to answer that question.
"It's like giving yourself your own nickname."

He later brought up a much replayed 2017 game-day clip of him criticizing the play of now ex-Hurricane (and ex-Flame) goaltender Eddie lack, vowing: "You won't get the Eddie Lack sound bite. I learned from that."
Peters isn't shy about already setting targets of Top-10 finishes in each of the primary statistical categories - goals-for/against, penalty-kill, powerplay.
"If you're in the top half of a 31-team league, you're 15-16 and you're on the bubble,'' he said emphatically.
"We don't want to be a bubble team."
Exercising his option out of his contract in Carolina, Peters - born in Three Hills and raised in Killam - is celebrating a return home to pilot the Flames.
Peters was the only candidate general manager Brad Treliving interviewed as a replacement for Glen Gulutzan, or even considered.
"I was very familiar with the field, there were some great candidates,'' stressed Treliving. "I was focused on Bill."
If the GM likes what he sees in his newly-installed coach, the coach seems more than content with the array of talent at his disposal.
A portion of it - captain Mark Giordano, Sean Monahan, Travis Hamonic, Michael Stone, TJ Brodie - were on hand for Monday's introduction.
"The majority of the core is still in its prime, still has room to grow,'' said Peters. "There's a higher ceiling we can reach.
"We'll play a game that's puck-possession, D-active. Face-offs are important, that's your first 50-50 battle. I want to have the puck. I want to possess the puck. I want to make sure we value the puck.
"Everyone wants to be the hardest-working team in the league, right? Only one out of 31 can. But you want to be in that conversation.
"Probably five or six teams, you know each and every night it's going to be a long night. It's going to be hard. Anything you get, you earn.
"We want that for sure.
"We want have speed in our game. Whether it's puck speed, foot speed or gap speed. We want to play quick. We want to have the puck. We want to attack the puck.
"It's fun when you have the puck. It's a lot of work when you're in the D-zone and gettin' wore out. That's heavy lifting."
So as of Monday, one coaching vacancy filled.
Two to go.
Peters, though, insists he's not in any huge hurry to round out his staff.
Accuracy, not expediency, is the aim.
"We'll be patient,'' he promised. "We'll hire two quality teachers. I believe this group has more potential, individually and collectively.
"So I need guys to go out and teach, not micro-manage. Someone's going to be to my left, help me out with game management and the forwards. And someone's going to run the back end and the penalty kill.
"That's the way I like to do it.
"At the end of the day, though, when the sun sets, it's on me. So if we have a segment of our team that's not where we want it to be, it's on me.
"I'm going to have the final say.
"I'm going to the one who signs off on how we play and what we do."