[transplant99]

Brad Treliving ordered the baked halibut.

Jonathan Huberdeau opted for a steak.

A good sign.

“I told him, ‘You’re ready for some Alberta beef, man,’ ” Treliving said.

“It’s hard to get good players and it’s hard to keep good players, and he’s a good player,” Treliving said after inking Huberdeau — the NHL’s assists leader in 2021-22, with 85 helpers — to the biggest contract in club history. “We’re excited to have him locked up.”

“(Treliving) talked so highly about the city, and that made me so excited to play there,” said Huberdeau, who was sporting a Flames jersey — with his No. 10 on the back — for a charity ball-hockey game Saturday at the National Bank Open tennis tournament in Montreal. “He is excited and he thought I would fit real well on that team and that made me think, ‘You know, I want to be there.’ He wants to win for a lot of years, not only one year. I think we’re committed. And that’s what I liked when Brad was talking to me.”

“When it happened, yeah, it was dramatic. You had two players, two top players, that made those decisions,” Treliving said of the departures of Gaudreau and Tkachuk. “But listen, this hasn’t been a longstanding issue where players don’t want to play in Calgary. We think it’s a great city to live in. We think it’s a great organization to play for. We have a really good team. I think you have to be passionate about your organization and city, and I think it has great things to offer.

“So when you sit and talk to Jonathan. … He has been to Calgary as a visitor, but everybody thinks when you go on the road, you get to go to all these places. For the most part, especially for the players, it’s bus, hotel, rink and a restaurant. You could say ‘Oh, you go on a five-game trip, you’ve been to all these places.’ Well, a lot of times, guys don’t know anything other than the hotel, maybe a favourite restaurant and the rink there. So you’re just trying to educate him. At the end of the day, it’s a small world, too, so he’s going to talk to a lot of people. We talked about what the city has to offer, how good it is, how great it is to raise a family, how those who live here love it, here’s why we think you’re going to love it.

“It’s a great city,” continued Treliving, now entering his ninth season as general manager at the Saddledome. “I’m proud. … Forget about being with the Flames, I’m glad that during my career, I got a chance to live in Calgary because I think it’s a really, really good place to be. So you just talk through that. You answer questions about the organization. You outline your thoughts and where you’re trying to go with things. You’re talking a little bit about where he fits in. And then it’s just two guys talking. A lot of it, for me, I’m trying to learn about what makes him tick and the experiences he’s had and what he’s trying to accomplish.

“I know people may try to portray it as a sales pitch. It wasn’t. Whether it be this business or any business, I believe relationships are so important. We’re not in manufacturing. We’re not dealing with machinery. We’re dealing with people. I always feel, you sit across from people, you tell ’em what you think, you’re honest with them, you ask them questions. … The whole point of me going out there to see him was just building a relationship. That’s all it was.”

https://calgarysun.com/sports/hockey...with-huberdeau