I think Treliving should be in the running for executive of the year. He took a team that was bottom 5 in the league, made some major changes, and now they are 10th in the league. He was fully responsible for the $9M goalie mess last year but he also made the changes that have the Flames in a far better position in net for a combined cost of $4.2M. Obviously that number will go up next year but he left himself flexibility to easily make changes in that regard if needed.
The players he added on wing (Tkachuk, Versteeg, Brouwer, Chiasson) have not all been wins but having Tkachuk fall to the Flames and keeping him (Burke mentioned he wanted to send Matty down but Tre wanted to keep him) was a huge win. Versteeg has proven to be a great pickup and while I hope the Brouwer mistake goes away via Vegas he will come in handy during the playoffs.
He had a flawed blueline that I fee he hoped to fix with Russell but that fell through. The deadline moves for Stone and Bart sure look good right now.
The move that he made where I am prepared to eat the most crow (Elliott is a close second) is the Gulutzan hire. I didn't like it from day 1 and was ready to fire him throughout the year. I thought for large chunks of the season this team had no identity and was awful to watch. Even when they went on the run in Nov-Dec I thought it was largely goaltending that drove it and then the 4 straight 4-0 deficits had me convinced this team was going nowhere. Now that he has full buy in from the players I feel I owe Glen an apology. The Flames look like a very good team right now giving us consistent efforts nightly and they can hang with any and all teams in the league.
Trelivings moves this summer involves getting the team to play a puck possession style, improve the goaltending, and become bigger and harder to play against. It didn't look good for portions of the season but as we enter the final 13 games I think he accomplished all 3 of those goals
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