This is the last run for this group barring winning rounds of the playoffs. Basically Treliving built a team in the summer of 2018 making a big trade and signing Ryan and Neal. Those moves proved positive but he painted himself into a corner cap wise. While the Neal signing was addressing a need that remains today it was a poor fit. Signing that deal made it impossible to acquire Mark Stone and sign him to an extension while also signing Tkachuk in the summer.
Treliving then at the 11th hour is able to flip Frolik and a 1st for Jason Zucker. The day seemed saved and the Flames added a long term top 6’winger but the trade fell through at the last minute.
Needing to sign Tkachuk, Bennett, Rittich, Mangipane with little to no space they sat on the sidelines this summer. Right before the draft Treliving appeared to address the top 6 need again by acquiring Kadri for Brodie and Jankowski except Kadri doesn’t waive his NMC. The Flames are able to get a player to waive his NMC last summer though adding Lucic for Neal. A complete dud for dud but Lucic had been a dud longer.
So Neal, Hathaway, Fattenburg, Smith leave Valimaki gets hurt. Lucic, Talbot, Reider, Rinaldo are inn Dube and Kylington make the team. The same group continues their poor play from the last 1/4 of the 18/19 season and Frolik is moved out for Forbort basically and a 3rd got us Gustafsson but we might get another 3rd if Neal scores 2 goals.
So basically 2 full seasons with this group and they have been trending down since the bye week in 2019. The way this core is trending it is going to be a potentially frustrating 6 weeks left in the season and possibly first round of the playoffs if they are lucky. What we can absolutely expect this summer if that is the case is major changes. New coach almost guaranteed. Major core piece or pieces will certainly be traded. There is even a small chance the GM is let go.
He hasn’t been able to make moves for 2 years and by all accounts this team is simply not good enough!!!’
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