[CaptainYooh]

I was fortunate to attend at a small pre-game dinner gathering, where Treliving came to speak. He also took a few questions. Here's a summary of what I thought was noteworthy:

- Why Lucic?
- Why not?
- No, seriously?
- James and Milan were both struggling. We thought that a change of scenery could benefit both. He really wants to bounce back. We believe he can.

- Why Talbot?
- We think Rittich will be our guy. He's had a great camp and unbelievable summer training. There was also some dynamics involved. Smithy is very competitive, wants to start every game, dominates, and David was deferring to him a bit too much. It was time to show David that we trust him to be a starter. Cam is also very competitive and he's gonna play. We believe he can be better than he was last season. But we feel David's time has come.

- Do you believe Flames are a Stanley Cup contender with this roster?
- Good question. I don't know, but more accurately, I don't think about it. The league parity is so extreme, just look at the past season. You start thinking about Stanley Cup, you lose track of making the playoffs. We have to make playoffs. We'll keep monitoring the progress of each player. Our roster doesn't look much different from last season, but we finished with 107 points, and I do think we have still made some improvements over the summer.

- What are the most challenges for GM's in modern NHL?
- Parity, by far the biggest challenge. How do you make your team just a little better than your opponents, when every team is so good. Very, very tough nowadays...

- What are our chances against Vacouver tonight?
- I see a couple of blue jerseys here; I will speak slowly for you guys... Vancouver, arguably, made some impressive roster moves this summer. As good or better than many other teams. This will be a battle, for sure.

- Congrats on a new contract.
- Yeah, it was day-to-day, now it's week-to-week...