Flames Fire Hay

NHL teams

"You come to a point where you have to make an assessment: Can it change?" Flames' general manager Craig Button said. "And I came to the point where I didn't feel it was going to change."

Calgary is 15 points out of the playoffs with a 23-28-13-4 record and just 13 games left in the season.

"We've got a lot of things to work on," Gilbert said. "We competed hard, but when you make mistakes they come back to bite you."

Gilbert said the remainder of the Flames' season would be an evaluation period.

"We're just going to sit back and take a look and see what goes on from here," he said. "We know we have a lot of work to do in a lot of areas. That's our focus, on getting better. We're looking ahead."