Lucic: Flames' struggles have 'nothing to do with the coaches'

The Calgary Flames suffered another embarrassing loss to the Ottawa Senators on Monday, and veteran forward Milan Lucic is holding his teammates accountable despite recent speculation that head coach Geoff Ward could be on the hot seat.

"You hear a lot of outside noise talking about coaching and all this ... style of play and all this bullshit," Lucic said after Monday's 5-1 loss, according to Sportsnet960's Pat Steinberg. "But that has nothing to do with the coaches. That has everything to do with the guys that are playing."

Ottawa, currently sitting last in the North Division, routed Calgary 6-1 last week as well. The Flames have only three wins in their last 10 games and tallied just one goal in each of the seven losses during that span.

Ward took over head coaching duties in November 2019 and guided the club to a 24-15-3 record before the campaign paused in March. Calgary has struggled to match that level of play this season, and Ward recently called out his team for its inconsistent play.

Lucic apparently agreed with his coach's message Monday and said it's up to the players to put in the work.

"It seems like ... we just want it easy on a night to night basis," Lucic said, per Steinberg. "We don't want to work hard like we did when this coaching staff took over last year. There's more than enough people in this organization that need to look in the mirror."

The Flames own a 10-11-2 record and rank 27th in goals per game (2.52) this season.

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