It's been said 100 times already:
Ken King acts on behalf of ownership.
Better to suggest retiring ownership instead of the messenger.
What do they pay Burke $2m for then? Ken King isn't much more of a hockey guy than you or I, Burke was hired to be just that and should be doing more than just being a mouth piece on Toronto radio and visiting our fine city a few times a year.
Ken King should stick to counting the end game beans....nothing more.
Who is the leaker of this info, I can only think of a couple people...
Ben Bishop spoke about the trade (that almost happened) and that he was negotiating with the Flames (last draft). This has been spoken about on Fan960.
Regehr was a top 4 shutdown dman. The very thing we lacked after dealing him. We should've gotten great value for him, he wasn't over the hill yet.
A pending UFA Doug Murray got two 2nds at one deadline. A greater return than we got on a signed Regehr who was twice the player Murray was. If we wanted to dump salary getting rid of Sarich the inferior defenceman making only slightly less was the obvious move
The Regehr trade was one of many horrible Feaster deals. The man lost trades on the regular and had no concept how to build a winning team. It's almost a miracle he didn't hurt the team more. The Regehr, Iginla and Bouwmeester trades were sad days to be a Flames fan
Also, let's not forget Regehr got 2 second rounders a few years later when they traded him to the Kings.
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Scariest part of all this, if all the speculation is accurate, then ownership saved Treliving from making two awful moves........
Yeah they saved him from shoring up the biggest weakness on the team by acquiring a goalie in his prime with a track record of being top 5 in the league and carrying his team deep in the playoffs with Conn Smythe quality goaltending.
Phew.
Geez, you'd think Flames fans HADN'T just watched their team get swept out of the playoffs in embarrassing fashion because the goalie couldn't stop a beach ball or control an easy rebound.
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Add me to the list of those not all that concerned that ownership would have a say in a contract offer of that size to a 31 year old goaltender with injury issues ... I have no problem with that at all.
I think it happens in almost any market.
Ken King - not a fan of meddling if it's going on, but have no problem if he is the agent of the ownership group on certain transactions. Someone mentioned a threshold and I think that makes sense.
Rumours - Every rumour can both be true and also be false. The Bolts could have asked for Backlund and 2 2nds which would make the rumour true, but Treliving could have said no deal sorry. Wouldn't change the fact that it almost happened from the Bolts side.
Either way, happy we don't have Bishop for 6-7 years. Look at Lundqvist's contract for the next four years, that will hurt, and they were similar age when he signed it.
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There's two separate incidents that I think people are confusing. As someone who is not a fan of Ken King I can't hold ownership at fault for nixing a massive contract. It's their money, they don't hand the GM a blank cheque for anything he might possibly want. Flames ownership has consistently shown they are willing to spend to the cap. So although some of us might be wishing we had Bishop at the draft last year, we have to remember it really is ownerships call on that and we won't know whether it was the the right call or not well into what would've been the 7 year term on that contract.
The other incident, when KK was unreachable a couple days before the draft deadline, is inexusable and embarrassing. There's no reason KK should have any input/veto power on behalf of ownerhsip on an expiring contract.
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Yeah they saved him from shoring up the biggest weakness on the team by acquiring a goalie in his prime with a track record of being top 5 in the league and carrying his team deep in the playoffs with Conn Smythe quality goaltending.
Phew.
Geez, you'd think Flames fans HADN'T just watched their team get swept out of the playoffs in embarrassing fashion because the goalie couldn't stop a beach ball or control an easy rebound.
I'd also add that if they had signed Bishop, there might not have been enough money to spend in free agency. Could have saved them from the Brouwer signing.
I would take Bishop at 6 years over Brouwer contract any day of the week. Granted this is after seeing how Brouwer played this year. I did like the Brouwer signing at the time.
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Either way, happy we don't have Bishop for 6-7 years. Look at Lundqvist's contract for the next four years, that will hurt, and they were similar age when he signed it.
1st, Lundqvists contract was for 13.2% of the cap when it was signed. Bishop signing for $6.5 million with an estimated $75 million cap is 8.6% of the cap.
2nd, Lundqvists first year of that deal he was 32 taking him to 39, Bishop would be 30 and a 6 year deal (rumored) would take him to 36.
3rd, Lunqvist deal hasn't hurt them yet. He had a down year for him, but they were still a top 5 team in the league. Remains to be seen if he bounces back or the team starts to suffer.
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I agree that owners should be concerned with the money that they are spending on players, but shouldn't they put some trust in their GM? The GM is supposed to build a team, but how can he build a team to his vision if owners don't trust him? If the owners don't trust a GM to make the correct decisions then why do they keep him employed? If the owners don't trust their GM, why do they bother hiring somebody to be the GM? Why don't they just name themselves the GM?
Trust in your GM, place some parameters to give him guidance, and let him do his job. If he wants to bend or stretch those parameters then he can ask the owner and the owner can get involved in that decision, but otherwise don't meddle.
You hire somebody to do a job, if you don't trust them to do the job then don't hire them. A good leader is allowed to keep informed but a good leader lets their people do what they are hired to do. A good leader builds an environment that allows people to do their part, supports those people, and lets those people succeed without controlling those people.
Since Treliving has been GM, the Flames have attempted to acquire Ben Bishop on 3 different occasions.
The First time, the player waived his no-trade clause except the deal was nixed apparently from ownership.
The Second time, Ownership was not available to give the OK.
The Third time, the player in question seemingly preferred another destination.
These events do not lead me to believe that the Flames ownership group was interested in acquiring Ben Bishop.
We can speculate as to the why, but it seems obvious to me that there is a disconnect between what hockey ops wants to do and what ownership will allow them to do.
Maybe the owners just really didn't like Bishop, maybe they didn't want to spend the money, but either way, it gives credence to the rumour that Treliving was only willing to re-sign if he had autonomy from that kind of interference.
In light of getting swept in the playoffs on a bucket of bad goaltending, that ownership interference looks much worse, but it may have given Treliving the ample evidence he needed to justify the lack of oversight. "This is what happens when you're involved in hockey ops."
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