Francis: Treliving filled with disappointment, anger after team's collapse

[sureLoss]

Nothing earth shattering here: As expected won't get into coaching discussions

https://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/...eams-collapse/

Emotionally drained following the most shocking face plant of the NHL’s stretch run, Brad Treliving knows he’s facing a summer of significant change.

However, the fourth-year Flames GM insists that as he dissects all that went wrong in the final month of the season the reality is, “Things are never as bad as they seem.”

“Is there more to be done that I would have thought two months ago? Certainly that’s probably a fair assessment,” said Treliving of the significantly new outlook on a team that won four of its last 17 games since it last appeared in a playoff position Feb. 25.

“How we’ve finished is not lost on me. But the answer is going to be found once the emotion subsides and the dark cloud dissipates and you can look with a clear mind. But there’s no question there’s work to do.

“You can also make mistakes by saying, ‘Everything is wrong and let’s stick a stick of dynamite in this.’ The first instinct is we have to blow the whole thing up. I don’t think we’re in that mode.”

In an exclusive, wide-ranging interview, Treliving’s first public comments in several weeks included taking no issue with Smith’s frank comments.

Nor does the GM believe Smith meant to throw any of his teammates under the bus.

In fact, Treliving is on a similar wavelength with the 36-year-old goalie in terms of what ails this team most.

“There’s an emotional level you have to get to to assist you in winning and we have to look into that,” said Treliving, stung tremendously by the stunning turn of events that included losing seven straight until Saturday’s win.

“Are we emotionally invested enough? We’re missing something. I think we’ve got to find a way to be more emotionally engaged. We’ve got to be a harder team to play against. That can mean a lot of different things, but we’ve got to define the identity of our team. We’re missing something.”

[Locke]

Nothing crazy, just saying what we all feel.

This finish has got to be a knife to the gut though. I cant imagine how that must feel to the guy who built the team.

To just watch them crumble like this is brutal.

[Roof-Daddy]

I want to be optimistic that Treliving can turn this thing back around, but he traded away our 1st and 2nd round picks in a year where we missed the playoffs, and he's the guy who hired Gulutzan who has pretty much face planted in embarrassing fashion. (and hasn't fired him yet either...officially)

My faith is shaken, to say the least.

[Hot_Flatus]

Originally Posted by Locke

Nothing crazy, just saying what we all feel.

This finish has got to be a knife to the gut though. I cant imagine how that must feel to the guy who built the team.

To just watch them crumble like this is brutal.

Crumbling assumes they actually amounted to something this year. This team has been a pile of crumbs for the entire season.

I can't think of anyone who should actually be surprised by this type of finish after enduring this disaster for the last 12 months. If anything, this finish does confirm that the big win streak was the outlier and the consistently mediocre play is, infact, who the 2017/2018 Flames are.

[Toonage]

Just more or less what he said last night (which from Treliving isn't a ton) fleshed out with with a lot of Francis's opinion but still a good piece. Certainly looks better on the page than Francis spitting it out last night in a rather jumbled fashion.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Hot_Flatus

Crumbling assumes they actually amounted to something this year. This team has been a pile of crumbs the entire season. I can't think of anyone who should actually be surprised by this type of finish after enduring this disaster for the last 12 months.

Well...they were in the playoff hunt and some of the more cagey posters would have you believe that this was all that could have been expected of them, but their 'playoff run' was a total disaster.

A complete collapse.

I've never seen hockey this bad except when watching Edmonton.

[troutman]

[CaptainCrunch]

I'm betting that the end of season pizza party and garbage bag and final interview day will be very subdued.

With the question of "Did Treliving spit in the pizza" floating out there.

[Joborule]

Treliving built this mess, so up to him to fix it if he's gonna stick around.

It has to be a busy off season for him if the team is gonna rebound next season.

[Shazam]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

I'm betting that the end of season pizza party and garbage bag and final interview day will be very subdued.

With the question of "Did Treliving spit in the pizza" floating out there.

If the pizza comes from BP, I'd be concerned that both Trelivings spat in it.

[Manhattanboy]

To me you can't really look at things over an 82 game season - I tend to focus on the second half and Q4 in particular. That's when really good teams teams step it up (ANA year after after year, crap for the first 40 games or so then they perform when it matters most). Flames teams have a history of terrible play in the last month or two of the season, and even when they are in a playoff position they always seem to back in.

Maybe not the most articulate post but you get my point.

[Flacker]

The 82 game season was like the typical 60 minutes of a Flames hockey game. Decent start, average middle, struggle to hang on, horrendous finish.

[Shazam]

Originally Posted by Flacker

The 82 game season was like the typical 60 minutes of a Flames hockey game. Decent start, average middle, struggle to hang on, horrendous finish.

That's what she said!

[stone hands]

I believe in treliving

In my opinion theyre closer to the 7 game winning streak team than the 7 game losing streak version. This collapse at the end of the year is extremely suspect but i think brad is smart enough to figure it out

Either way I think any calls for wholesale changes throughout the roster or to blow it up are really short sighted. All they really truly need is some better forward depth. They are going to fix some character issues by roster turnover(they HAVE to buyout brouwer, don't they?) And this team is super momentum heavy. Give them a few more guys on the roster who can bury and they will be juiced all the time

[Igottago]

His comment about identity is a bit strange. Shouldn't he have come into the role with an idea about the identity he wanted to build here? Shouldn't his coaching hire have been an extension of that identity? Saying "we need an identity and that can mean a lot of different things" doesn't exactly paint a picture of what he wants to see.

[undercoverbrother]

I can't help but feel that Francis wrote this with a sense of glee.

Also, while I am on the topic of Francis, I hate that on the Fan960 they call him The Franchise.

[Itse]

I really hope that "hard to play against" doesn't mean "bring in more character guys".

My personal take: players are excited to play for a team they feel is pretty good, can go far and do some damage in the playoffs, maybe compete for the cup. This is what gets players emotionally involved, and anything else rarely does.

Athletes are competitive people, and they want to be in a position to compete. If they're not they quickly lose interest. If they're not in competitive situation, their whole job loses it's meaning. They play to win, and lose interest if that's just not going to happen.

Sure, sometimes you get the underdog story like the short playoff run under Hartley, but those are the exceptions.

Spoiler!

This is one reason why I think mid-season coaching changes are generally a good idea. It doesn't necessarily make the team any better, but it's likely to re-focus the players. They need to win their spots again, they can have some hope that maybe this new coach and new tactics can make the difference.

It's also why I think coaching is super-important. A lot of what coaches do is set specific goals for players. You do this and it achieves that. We do this and it achieves that, and that helps us win more games. You find the right button. Some players want to win because they're selfish, some just want to give everything for their team, some might want to win for a father-figure. Some play for a contract.

But in general for athletes the ultimate motivator is the chance to win the championship.

Which is why if you want a team that's consistently motivated, the best way to do that is getting players who are good at hockey. Not "leaders" or "character guys".

I also believe that the best "motivator" coaches are without failure very good X and O coaches who have solid skills at player utilization, because playing good hockey is super motivating to players.

Hockey players are not stupid when it comes to hockey. They generally know if something works or not, at least after they've tried it. They might not agree with the coach on everything, but they still generally know if the right guys are on the ice or not.

No amount of "characters" in the dressing room will fool a team into thinking they're a good team, and no amount of jedi mind tricks will fool a team into thinking a coach can coach if his tactics just don't work and he keeps putting the wrong guys out there at the wrong times.

In short:
Get players with skill, get a coach that's good at utilizing the team he has and knows modern hockey tactics, and leadership and character will take care of itself.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by Manhattanboy

To me you can't really look at things over an 82 game season - I tend to focus on the second half and Q4 in particular. That's when really good teams teams step it up (ANA year after after year, crap for the first 40 games or so then they perform when it matters most). Flames teams have a history of terrible play in the last month or two of the season, and even when they are in a playoff position they always seem to back in.

Maybe not the most articulate post but you get my point.

That is kind of true as it's not only this edition of the Flames as the Iginla teams post 2004 tended to come up small in big games as well. Part of this has to fall on the coaches and part on the team leaders over the years. I don't think they need guys like Smith throwing teammates under the bus in the media but they do need multiple guys that are seething and kicking garbage cans over after losses. I just haven't seen enough players on Flames rosters since 2004 that really, really wanted it as bad as the teams they were battling against to make the playoffs. Tkachuk is a step in the right direction but he's only a 2nd year player and the team absolutely doesn't need another expensive outside addition of supposed leadership like Brouwer. It's something that needs to come from within the younger players on this roster. Guys like Monahan, Gaudreau, Hamilton, etc need to evolve from being happy to play in the NHL and collect a big check to wanting nothing else but the cup. It doesn't happen overnight and may never happen for this group but outside of adding a head coach that shoulders a lot of the leadership burden I don't know what else they can do.

[Frank MetaMusil]

Dammit this is scary.

“I’m not getting into any of that,” said Treliving when asked about the coach. “That’s an easy thing in sports to do. The first thing is to look at the coach. I think we’ve got a good coach. We’ve got some good players, but we’re all subject to scrutiny when a season goes like this.”

[Jiri Hrdina]

Originally Posted by Frank MetaMusil

Dammit this is scary.

Not really. The full quote doesn't provide a vote of confidence but nor is he going to throw him directly under the bus at this point.