Jay Feaster will be faced with the toughest decision in his time as Calgary GM over the next two weeks: To fire coach Brent Sutter or not.

The Flames are entering a patch in their schedule that will largely determine their playoff future. They play eight games in 16 days. Six of those games are against teams Feaster fully expected his team to be better than. A year ago, a bad start put them in a hole they could not escape, even with an exceptional second half.

The betting is if Calgary doesn’t win at least five of these eight games, (versus Chicago, Columbus, Detroit, St. Louis, Minnesota, Nashville, Columbus, Edmonton) Sutter will be dismissed.

Feaster talked profoundly that a turnaround would happen this season. In early October, he told a TV audience the Flames would most assuredly make the playoffs. He is also on the record recently saying the time for patience has passed.

Feaster made just slight personnel modifications over the last year (mainly dealing Robyn Regehr for Chris Butler and Daymond Langkow for Lee Stempniak), using the thought process the Flames were a darned good team in the second half. So Feaster entered this season with a very good feeling about a surge into the West’s top eight.

The fact that hasn’t happened has to fall on the shoulders of Sutter. Sure, it’s the players who aren’t producing (15 of 19 regular Calgary skaters are scoring below their career shooting percentage), but you can’t fire them all or put them all on waivers.

Someone is to blame for Calgary’s abysmal power play, or the fact the Flames rank third last in the NHL in offence, last in faceoff winning percentage and second highest in giveaways. The Flames aren’t even entertaining to watch – they’re fourth last in hits.

Calgary has outshot the opposition just seven times in 17 games. And on those seven occasions, the Flames are 1-5-1, easily the worst record in the NHL. That means Calgary’s goalies are 6-4-0 in games the Flames have been outshot in.

For the Flames to get to the 97 points Chicago required to finish eighth last season, they need to go something like 37-20-8 from here on in.

So the decision is Feaster’s. He can either recant what he was saying earlier about a lack of patience and give his troops more time to find their touch. Or he can soon make a tough decision on a coach whose system just isn’t working.