Darryl Sutter took the Calgary Flames from the outhouse to the penthouse of the Pacific Division.

He was awarded appropriately for the effort.

Sutter was named the recipient of the Jack Adams Award on Thursday as the National Hockey League’s coach of the year after lifting Calgary from an afterthought last season to first place in the division just 12 months later.

“I think everybody talks about culture change,” started Flames general manager Brad Treliving on Saturday, just two days after the team was ousted from the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

“To me, culture is your habits, your environment, it’s doing the right things, it’s doing those mundane, miserable things over and over that make you better and that’s what Darryl does. I said it the day we introduced him. He pushes people to achieve things and it’s not always comfortable, but this, what we asked people to do and having, being successful in any walk of life is not easy.

“Human nature is to survive. It’s just to survive. So to be really good is hard and he pushes people to be really, really good. So he’s brought structure, he’s brought accountability to this group and the group’s embraced it. I’ve said it time and time again.”