Quote:
Originally Posted by Roof-Daddy
...They made the big trade that sent a disgruntled Hamilton away but managed to find gold with Lindholm and also Hanifin to an extent.
But then ROR gets moved and Treliving missed the boat on that one. Part of me wonders if at that point the newly acquired part time C Lindholm was part of the reason why BT didn't offer more than St. Louis did, or maybe it was also because they still had hope Bennett would get back on track with a new coach (Peters was hired that summer as well). Even still, should have got that one done...
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I get the instinct to pillory specific managers or teams for not acquiring a given player in a trade or via UFA, but in actuality I don't think this is fair. In this instance we could put together a hypothetical package that either looks as good as St Louis's was for O'Reilly, but even if we assume that certain pieces and players were of the same value in the mind of Treliving, it is also still impossible to simultaneously read the mind of Buffalo's GM. For all we know, Botterill was fixated on acquiring Tage Thompson over whatever equivalent prospect Treliving might have offered; to that end, it could also be the case that Treliving was determined to retain his 2019 first-round draft pick, and it is not difficult to fault him for this given what had just transpired in the 2018 draft when NYI walked away with Noah Dobson, and the Flames were left without a pick until #105.
There are certainly enacted decisions for which the Flames should be faulted, including James Neal's UFA deal. However, the non-acquisition of Ryan O'Reilly is not one of them.