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Originally Posted by TOfan
The Hamonic trade didn’t work out as planned, clearly. But I don’t think it was misguided in its attempt to improve the team. At the time Hamonic was a 27 year old top 4 RHS D with three years left on his deal at a reasonable cap hit. A 1st and two 2Nds was a lot to give up but the reported offer from the leafs was a 1St and JVR who at the time had one year left on his deal. One year of JVR seems to check out as it relates to the value of two 2nds in my mind.
What this was intended to do was to give the Flames a top 4 of Gio-Hamilton-Brodie-Hamonic. I don’t think it was a bad bet at the time to think that should have been an upper tier top 4 in the league. It should have been better. Unfortunately Flames fans are used to this; Regher-Phaneuf-Bouwmeester.
Bare in mind The Flames were likely anticipating a step forward from Bennett Tkachuk among others.
It’s curious reading comments by many here deriding Treliving for not making a move to help the team, even if it mean’s overpaying, now. They seem to be the same ones who are pointing to previous moves as the reason why he should be fired.
I think Treliving’s job is very much on the line this year. Last year I didn’t see any way the Flamrs were going to fire him with term left on his deal and the pandemic obviously effecting operating costs.
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It’s not so much Treliving’s will or desire that’s been questionable, I don’t think anyone can say he hasn’t tried or worked hard at improving the team. But it was his strategy, his talent evaluation and his master plan that has him on the ropes right now.
This team was never a goaltender or a defenseman away from contending. But that didn’t stop them from emptying the clip attempting to acquire short term/stop gap solutions. If anything, this season has all but proven that the forward depth and center ice position is and has always been this team’s biggest issue.
They may have tried to address the lack of depth with expensive complimentary forwards like Brouwer, Frolik, Neal and etc. But when you rush to retool and you don’t build a strong core through the draft, then this is what happens, your foundation crumbles. Management has tried some repair work and patch jobs here and there, but it’s amounted to the equivalent of slapping lipstick on a pig.
I don’t know if Treliving has a rabbit he can pull out of that hat of his, but the Western conference is insanely competitive this season and each and every loss will be magnified. So I imagine this thread could be very active from here on out.