"I actually visited with, interviewed, Geoff when we were both involved at the World Championships a couple years ago,'' Flames' general manager Brad Treliving recalled Thursday, after adding Geoff Ward from the New Jersey Devils organization as an associate coach to incoming bench boss Bill Peters.

The seeds began to take preliminary root as far back as two years ago, in faraway Moscow/St. Petersburg, Russia.

"I was there with Team Canada, he was involved with Team Germany, and we were going through the head coaching search.

"We ultimately decided to go in another direction but the time I spent with him really stuck with me.

"When Bill came on board we built some profiles for the positions we had, strengths, areas of expertise and started to formulate a list of candidates.

"A name we both talked about was Geoff Ward. There's really not a whole lot of background of Bill and myself with him. And, obviously, it was unique situation."

Contractually, Ward had an understanding that should an 'associate' position become available elsewhere, the opportunity could be pursued with consent from the Devils.

"So I reached out to Ray (NJ GM Ray Shero) and obviously he spoke glowingly of Geoff,'' says Treliving. "It was difficult, quite frankly, because I didn't want to put another manager in a position like that. But Ray was wonderful, very professional.

"We told him this wasn't one of 50 guys; Geoff was a priority person we'd like to talk to. And it went from there."

Rounding out the 2018-2019 coaching staff is Ryan Huska, elevated from AHL Stockton after being an integral part of developing talent for the big team here up top.

"The one thing I want to stress with Husk is that, yes, he's already in the organization and we really value the work he's done,'' says Treliving, "but this is not a hire of convenience.

"He's fully deserving of this. To give a little history: he's one of the first coaches Bill brought up when we started looking at the staff. In fact, Bill reached out to us when he was in Carolina about interviewing Husk for an assistant coaching position.

"That's what he thought of him going back to the days in Kelowna.

"This is a promotion on merit, on what he has done with our prospects in Stockton and what we know he will do with our group here in Calgary."