VANCOUVER — Mike Smith insists his team’s mojo had to change, while Brad Treliving speaks of the new vibe his moves have helped create.
But leave it to Matthew Tkachuk to detail as frankly as possible what the Calgary Flames really needed this off-season.
“I think that the main thing I took out of it is we needed kind of a kick in the ass,” said the third-year winger of a team that fell miserably short of a playoff spot last season.
“We need to realize how bad we were and how that’s not acceptable with management and players.”
No one on the team agrees with the suggestion a shortage of character or leadership led to the team’s stunning tumble from a February playoff spot.
On the ice, goaltending woes and injuries helped spell doom. Everyone agrees significant changes were in order.
Mission accomplished.
Say what you want about Treliving, but you can’t call him meek.
The Flames GM identified that his team needed to add depth up front and certainly did plenty about it, sacrificing his leading scorer from the back end, Dougie Hamilton, as part of a cavalcade of summer swapping and signing.
The personnel changes have been well-documented. The reason behind them isn’t, which is why it’s interesting to hear Smith admit things didn’t feel right in the room as last season came to a humbling end.
“There are a lot of people in here not happy with the way the season went last year and there are a lot of new guys that came in and want to make an impact and change the mojo in here,” said Smith, a mid-season all-star whose injury on Feb. 12 kick-started the team’s collapse.
“The management has done a god job to bring good people here. I can’t say enough about how close this group seems.”
Did the mojo he refers to need to change from last year?
“Oh yeah,” said Smith, 36.
“I think any time you don’t make the playoffs, changes need to be made.”
Asked if he bought into the belief not enough players on last year’s team hated to lose like he does, the ultra-competitive Smith chose to focus on the upgrades instead.
“I think the majority of the guys have that and the new guys coming in have that,” said Smith of a roster that will open tonight in Vancouver with nine new faces in the 20-man lineup from a year earlier.
“I think you need that to be able to push forward.”
Everyone in camp points to the benefits of the main group’s nine-day trip to China as a boon to bringing the new guys into the fold and building the type of bond necessary to push one another’s accountability.
“Whatever you want to call it, we tried to make our team better,” laughed Treliving, arguably the NHL’s busiest man this summer.
“I like the vibe around our team. It’s unique because it’s sort of like they’ve been together for 10 years. Two 14-hour flights will do that. I like the mix of the group.”
The team gathered for a dinner and birthday celebration for their captain Tuesday night in Vancouver where they handed assistant captaincies to Tkachuk and Mikael Backlund.
The camp evaluation process landed the team two raw rookies Treliving didn’t expect would push as hard as they did to earn opening night gigs — Dillon Dube and Juuso Valimaki.
The first- and second-round draft picks will add a youthful exuberance to a bunch that also required more veteran character.
“Everybody says all this room stuff, but I didn’t buy into this lack of character stuff,” said Treliving, who also brought in Bill Peters and two new assistants to foster a new era and attitude.
“Some of the people we brought in were not only about the people we have on the ice but the personality. I think you have to have some personality and obviously some chemistry.
“You know when it feels right. You can get along but there’s a push and drive and you can tell a good friend to pull up his socks without worrying.”
He said his prized free-agent signing, James Neal, brings “swagger” to the team — a trait rarely seen round these parts of late.
Free agents Austin Czarnik and Derek Ryan bring that bottom six scoring depth, and trade acquisition Elias Lindholm will start the season on the top line with Johnny Gaudreau and Sean Monahan. That could change.
Ryan, Neal and Dube will form the team’s third line, which should produce more goals by Christmas than the Flames anemic bottom six did all last season.
Noah Hanifan, who arrived with Lindholm in the trade for Hamilton and Micheal Ferland, has stabilized the Flames second pairing with Travis Hamonic by virtue of bumping T.J. Brodie back to the top pairing with Mark Giordano.
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All of it is being molded by Peters, who has a reputation for demanding more accountability from a group that vastly underachieved last year.
“I wouldn’t say the mojo has changed, but there’s a spark when we bring in a fresh coaching staff and a bunch of players to try to change the dynamic of your team a little bit,” said Tkachuk, one of the heartbeats of the team whose late-season injury coincided with the spring slide.
“It sparks every player that was here before, and with the players that were here before, we don’t ever want to feel that again.
“I think the mojo change is where we have to be more comfortable and realize we have to be a playoff team and we have to do everything in our power to remain a playoff team for a lot of years. But it all starts with a good start.”
Starts have been an issue in Calgary for the bulk of the last 10 years, adding even more pressure to do something special from the get-go.
“There was a lot of excitement last year and we know what happened, so I think maybe I’d use that word carefully,” said Smith.
“But there are a lot of great people in this room that want to win. And I think you can use the word ‘special’ because there are a lot of people in here not happy with the way the season went last year, and there’s a lot of new guys that came in and want to make an impact and change the mojo in here.
“It starts with the people and I think we’ve done a good job with the people that really want to make a difference. So it can be an exciting time to be a Calgary Flames fan and to be on this team.”
