[united]

While I have been pretty tough on Treliving for his brain-dead moves of which I view as inexcusable given the information available at the times, one piece that gives me some guarded optimism is I have been given reason to believe Chris Snow's promotion to assistant GM two off-seasons ago was significantly based on his strong advocacy against what ended up being Treliving's largest blunders (to date) - as anyone with a rudimentary understanding of analytics or competence in economics would have done. I digress. Snow's track record has finally been given more recognition internally and his promotion was well deserved.

Like any team, Snow's voice is that of one stakeholder and it is up to management to figure out how much weight to give each respective voice which is an ever-evolving evaluation.

So while Snow no doubt voiced strong concern with signing Bouma, Brouwer, Stone (both times), and Neal to their respective ludicrous contracts; voiced concern with the trades for Lazar and Hamonic; and questioned burning draft picks on hopeless pet-project prospects like Bruce, Mattson, Fischer, Koumontzis, and Nodler; ultimately his voice at the time wasn't weighed strongly enough to avoid the disasters.

To be fair, while most credible fans and analysts heavily panned the Brouwer and Neal signings as having little chance of living up to either dollar or term, few could have seen them failing quite as badly as they did, as soon as they did. Unfortunately the same can't be said of the Lazar trade and those draft picks, all of which never had even a slight chance of success. It's a learning Process, right?

I also have on good authority the Flames started using one of Idriss Bouhmouch's companies (The Hockey Code) for contract projections and negotiations. Some will be familiar with a portion of that company's work on Twitter under the same handle, or via former employee, Sam Forstner (who previously worked for Sportlogiq as well). While I fully support using as much data as possible in decision-making, it again begs the question why the Flames have the largest fleet of assistant general managers in the League if they need a third-party company to conduct an integral part of an assistant GM's duties for them.

Back to drafting, the Flames have actually performed exceptionally well under Treliving's leadership as a whole, and they have taken some swings on players analytically-inclined draft analysts loved much higher than their consensus ranking (Mangiapane, Andersson, Fox, Valimaki, Zary, Poirier, Francis, Kerins - note the increasing frequency since Snow's promotion). No surprise, and I suspect Chris Snow's prospect model is closely aligned with one like Byron Bader's and even my own. However there is one discouraging component that has prevented them from completely dominating the draft start to finish and that is giving Jim Cummins one or two executive picks per draft if he chooses. Cummins, for whatever reason, has the ear of Treliving and/or Button more than other scouts which has worked both terrifically and in disaster. On one hand, Cummins scooped Fox and Pettersen under Treliving's management...but on the other, he has gone to bat for Mattson, Koumontzis, Nodler, and Boltmann as well and they are all sub-1% prospects sadly. But here's the thing, Chris Snow, if using a model similar to Bader's or mine, would have supported both the Fox and Pettersen picks while likely having the other four not even ranked. If Treliving requires Snow to give the okay to Cummins' pet-project picks rather than allowing them without question, the Flames would still get the hidden gems while avoiding the picks that have as much value as lighting money on fire. Implement that and the Flames may become the best drafting team in the league moving forward, and certainly up there with the Lightning, Hurricanes, and Maple Leafs.

Snow is a huge asset and the more Treliving leans on him and learns from him, the better. The Flames are lucky to have him as he is one of the few who is able to blend the numbers game with the eye test and communicate effectively to proponents of both sides.