[mrdonkey]

There truly hasn’t been this much rationalizing since Sutter’s mid-season panic moves circa 2009. In this case, it might be best for everyone to agree that there’s no putting lipstick on this pig with fancy underlying numbers and talks about how his toughness will make the team better. Lucic sucks and may see regular time as a healthy scratch, and the lower we set our expectations the easier it will be when it plays out on the ice.

We’ll never know how much the locker room aspect and the money owed affected this decision, and likely never will. At least I take comfort in seeing that Treliving himself is not thrilled. He knows Lucic is not the answer to anything. So we don’t have to worry about gaudy declarations akin to the “most 20 goal scorers in the league” type of nonsense that Sutter tried to spin.

If nothing else, I can remain confident that our GM hasn’t suddenly lost his marbles. He probably just needed to get Neal the hell out of that room and was told by Edwards he wasn’t getting a buyout to do it. The real test still remains, and if the team steps back you can be pretty sure Treliving’s leash will be short. The Flames are once again the laughing stock of the league.