The future of the Calgary Flames hangs in the balance of ownership’s decision on whether Brad Treliving will remain as its GM.
With two years left on his contract, the 51-year-old has spent the last week at the Dome, wrapping up the season with typical year-end meetings with players, staff and coaches.
The goal is to determine what went wrong and how best to proceed.
Treliving will soon take his findings to ownership where an annual year-end dissection will be punctuated with a course of action that will either be spearheaded by Treliving or someone else.
A respected frontman with a reputation for working hard and being unafraid to make bold changes, Treliving is exactly what the Flames need to guide them through the overhaul required.
Hired in 2014 by Brian Burke to oversee a rebuild, Treliving did so without the aid of having high draft picks, other than the fourth and sixth overall picks he used in 2014 and 2016 to pick Sam Bennett and Matthew Tkachuk respectively.
He has since brought in all but four of the players on the current roster, making Treliving the best-equipped hockey mind to pinpoint every aspect of the team’s on and off-ice strengths and deficiencies to determine which major moves need to be made this summer.
With the clock ticking on crucial decisions like Johnny Gaudreau’s future, there’s no time to start from scratch and search for a new GM who is unfamiliar with the team.
Continuity is key for a franchise that finished second in the NHL’s regular season standings three seasons ago.
Given expectations, there’s no denying this team is in a precarious situation after finishing 20th in the 31-team league.
Over his seven years as chief architect, Treliving’s Flames have the 20th-best regular season winning percentage and have advanced past the first round just once, his first year on the job.
Flames fans debate whether the team is heading in the right direction or whether this core needs to be significantly altered.
Treliving himself admitted last week change was needed.
To understand if he should be part of that change we delve deep into Treliving’s draft record, free agent signings, player re-signings, trades and coaching hires:
DRAFTING
The Flames have drafted 43 players under Treliving, starting with Sam Bennett, whom he took fourth overall in 2014. Despite scoring 18 goals in his rookie campaign, Bennett never lived up to the expectations as the highest pick in Flames history before being shipped to Florida at this year’s deadline. Bennett’s early success down south only served to heighten the debate over whether he could have been better managed in Calgary.
No one else from the Flames draft class that year has played an NHL game. All told, 10 players Treliving has drafted have played in the NHL.
That list is highlighted by Matthew Tkachuk (sixth overall, 2016), Rasmus Andersson (2nd round, 2015), Andrew Mangiapane (6th round, 2015), Dillon Dube (2nd, 2016) and Juuso Valimaki (1st, 2017). Bennett, Oliver Kylington, Adam Ruzicka, Matthew Phillips and Adam Fox round out the list of NHLers.
Treliving’s wheeling and dealing has often come at the expense of draft picks, as he didn’t have a first-rounder in 2015, he didn’t have a second or third-rounder in 2017, he didn’t pick until the fourth round in 2018 and he had no second-rounder in 2019.
Some of his notable misses include second-round goalie picks Tyler Parsons and Mason McDonald, as well as hulking second-rounder Hunter Smith.
None of the players drafted in the last three years have played in the NHL, but his last two first rounders, Connor Zary and Jakob Pelletier, continue to progress well. Diminutive goalie Dustin Wolf, Treliving’s seventh-round pick in 2019, is wrapping up one of the best junior careers at the position in recent history, prompting many to wonder if he can indeed overcome his size.
UFA SIGNINGS
After years of being unable to find a stable solution to the team’s netminding woes, Treliving made a splash by signing Jacob Markstrom to a six-year, $36 million contract last off-season.
He followed it up by signing Chris Tanev to a four-year, $18 million pact to replace the departed T.J. Brodie.
Both moves were widely regarded as successes for the Flames, which was a nice development for Treliving who has had his share of missteps on the open market.
His biggest blunder was the James Neal signing in 2018 when he inked the then-30-year-old to a five-year deal at $5.75 million AAV. Give Treliving credit for quickly realizing what a disaster it was on and off the ice and salvaging something from it by swapping him the next summer for Edmonton’s Milan Lucic, who has turned out to be a good add, albeit at a similarly hefty price.
Signing Mason Raymond in 2014 for three years at $3.15 million AAV and inking Troy Brouwer for four years in 2016 at $4.5 million AAV both turned out to be mistakes, as their respective contracts were bought out two years after being inked.
Michael Frolik’s five-year deal at $4.3 million AAV in 2015 was better value, although he was primarily a diligent checker who never returned to the 20-goal form he had early in his career.
Derek Ryan’s signing in 2018 has been a fruitful add, as the versatile centre has certainly been good value for the three-year deal at $3.125 million AAV.
In his efforts to find creative solutions in net Treliving signed undrafted Czech revelation David Rittich in 2016 and watched him rise quickly through the ranks to be a significant part of the Flames netminding picture the last three years.
A big feather in Treliving’s cap there.
Free agent signings Glenn Gawdin and Connor Mackey continue to be two of the team’s top prospects.
RE-SIGNINGS
This is unquestionably where Treliving has done his best work.
While every team has bad contracts in its books, Treliving has done well to get his top players to sign palatable, often team-friendly extensions. That list of core players includes Johnny Gaudreau ($6.75 million AAV), Mark Giordano, ($6.75 million AAV) and Sean Monahan ($6.375 million AAV), Mikael Backlund ($5.35 million AAV), Elias Lindholm ($4.85 million AAV), Noah Hanifin ($4.95 million AAV) and Rasmus Andersson ($4.55 million AAV). Even Matthew Tkachuk’s team-leading $7 million AAV is palatable.
T.J. Brodie’s five-year extension in 2015 at $4.65 million AAV was prudent, as was Micheal Ferland’s two-year deal in 2017 at $1.75 million AAV.
There were a few missteps, as Michael Stone’s three-year extension in 2017 at $3.5 million AAV prompted a buyout.
Lance Bouma’s three-year deal at $2.2 million AAV came under duress as it was agreed to hours before an arbitration ruling in 2015. He was bought out two years later.
TRADES
Treliving is known for having the stones to make big deals, which is what is required this summer.
Three of his 38 swaps rank amongst some of the league’s biggest jaw-droppers over the last seven years, including the acquisition of Dougie Hamilton in 2015 and Travis Hamonic in 2017. The price tag for both was a first-round pick and two second-rounders.
The first of those set the stage for Treliving’s whopper with Carolina in 2018, landing Hanifin and Lindholm in Calgary for Hamilton, Ferland and Fox.
Lindholm is Calgary’s best all-around forward and Hanifin is the team’s top second-pairing defenceman, while Hamilton has earned Norris trophy consideration ever since he arrived in Carolina.
The fact that Fox is amongst Norris frontrunners this season is largely irrelevant as he had made it known before the trade he wouldn’t be signing with Calgary after leaving college.
Debates still rage over all three trades, with the Hamonic deal likely ranking as the clear loser.
Treliving has certainly done well to cash in at the trade deadline, when he’s landed a second-rounder (Oliver Kylington) and third-rounder for Curtis Glencross, a second (Tyler Parsons) and fourth for Jiri Hudler, a second (Dillon Dube) in a package for Kris Russell, a third-rounder in 2022 for backup goalie Rittich and a second in 2022 and prospect for Bennett.
Starting goalies Mike Smith and Brian Elliott were both good, value pickups via trade, as was Lucic, albeit for Treliving’s biggest mistake, Neal.
Trading Sven Baertschi in 2015 netted the Flames the second-round pick used to select Andersson.
Treliving took a chance trying to revitalize Curtis Lazar by acquiring him for a second-round pick from Ottawa in 2017, which didn’t work out.
COACHES
One of Treliving’s failings has certainly been his inability to find the right coach.
Treliving inherited Bob Hartley and extended him mid-season before he went on to win the Jack Adams Award as the NHL’s top coach in 2015.
One year later Hartley was fired after missing the playoffs.
He was replaced by first-time head coach Glen Gulutzan, who lasted two years, which included being swept in the first round by Anaheim and then missing the playoffs.
Without interviewing anyone else, he pegged Bill Peters as his next coach, only to see the former Carolina coach part ways with the organization following allegations of racism dating back to his days as a minor league coach.
Geoff Ward stepped up from his position as associate coach to replace Peters admirably, turning the team’s season around and earning a play-in series win over Winnipeg in the bubble last summer before losing in the first round to Dallas. Treliving removed Ward’s interim tag after that run, only to replace him with Darryl Sutter in a desperate attempt to save this season.
It didn’t work, as the team missed the playoffs and was on the hook for paying three head coaches at the same time, which couldn’t have pleased ownership.
Ward will still be paid next year, and Sutter is under contract for two more years.
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