If keeping Fox, i'd keep Hamilton since that was part of the trade and I'd rather have him. And throw in the what if Monahan stayed healthy combined with not ditching Bennett
Wait, is that actually possible? Like Treliving didn't have lottery protection on every possible condition?
It is unlikely as long as the Panthers have to finish bottom ten for it be a possibility but if their pick doesn't transfer in 25 then the only protection the Flames have is if the pick is 1st overall.
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It is sad to think that this team drafted all of Valimaki, Andersson, Fox, Kylington, and had Hamilton on the team at that time. And only Andersson is still playing for the Flames.
??? - Fox
Kylington - Hamilton
Valimaki - Andersson
And yeah if they don't make the stupid trade for Hamonic.
Dobson - Fox
Kylington - Hamilton
Valimaki - Andersson
Guess at least a couple of those guys are probably gone anyways due to the cap crunch.
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If keeping Fox, i'd keep Hamilton since that was part of the trade and I'd rather have him. And throw in the what if Monahan stayed healthy combined with not ditching Bennett
Have the Flames been the worst managed team in the NHL over the past several years? I am having trouble of thinking of others that have consistently made terrible decisions over and over. You can always count on this franchise to make poor decisions. It reminds me of Mike Milbury's Islanders era.
No comment on the current regime though. I think they are painted into a corner at the moment, and likely for a few years.
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It is really hard to not look back differently at the Treliving era and agree with some that he was not a great GM for this franchise. 2 things he gets praised for in the media are 2 of his biggest errors. The first was the Bill Peters fiasco which many talked about how Treliving dealt with this was top notch and his communication and getting out in front of it was very well done. We all know he had blinders on and fired Gulutzan with the goal of hiring Peters. There was no coaching search and ultimately I doubt there was much vetting on Peters because Treliving enjoyed his time with him at the Worlds and that was all he needed.
The second is the summer of Brad and in some cases this was the situation I felt that really put him on the map for the Toronto media. The summer of Brad was the result of him fumbling the 2 top franchise players and a situation he created for himself. He had an opportunity to trade or extend Johnny the summer before he was a free agent but decided that the best course of action was to deal with this in free agency where Gaudreau gained all the leverage. The Gaudreau negotiations paralyzed the team through draft week where they lacked picks and we waited until the final hour before hearing Johnny wasn’t coming back.
With Tkachuk he gifted him all the leverage in the world with a high QO and one year to UFA status. There was a path to a 6 year deal out of ELC but the horrendous signing of Neal and the desire to keep Frolik limited the teams cap space. So Brad created the situation that he received praise for pivoting from. The Florida trade on paper was shockingly good value but it was 2 rental players that were coming. In order to avoid the same situation a year later the org decided to give them 8 year deals despite one being 30 and the other turning 30in year 1 of the deal. The fact the team gave up the extra first they acquired in the Tkachuk trade to move beloved player Sean Monahan to sign a 32 year old coming off a completely one off year to max term has screwed this franchise for more than a half decade moving forward.
When the plan to build around Gaudreau and Tkachuk failed the smart thing to do would of been telling Brad to dismantle to team and start a rebuild and then when his contract expired this past season just move on like both parties did. I would have trusted Brad to tear the team down but not build it back up. Conroy is getting that rookie GM treatment that seems to be difficult to make deals. At least Brad was established and could have left Craig a clean slate and ability to build this team in his own vision.
People can blame the owners but Brad is the guy who made these deals.
Poor coaching hires
A reliance on free agency to make changes to the team
Lack of a long term plan
All reasons why Treliving was a pretty crappy GM in hindsight. Some of you saw this years ago but for me it was the complete fumbling of our franchise players and relying on free agency and overpaying people to fill those holes as the final straw for me especially since we have had more than a year to see the dust settle on these moves.
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The issue with Tre is that he eventually lost the owner's trust and yet didn't get fired out of some kind of misplaced loyalty or for the sake of pseudo-stability.
As soon as Murray hired Darryl, Tre should have been mercifully whacked. Someone should have been brought in, like a Lombardi, that could not only work with Darryl, but be the boss of Darryl. Instead, we had a power vaccuum and Sutter thought he was in charge. The Sutter extension on the eve of last season, I think, sent things nuclear between the two and things became "toxic".
If Sutter had someone to report to that he knew and respected, I doubt we see any of the nonsense we saw last year. And maybe the roster would look a little nicer too.
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Trade Hanifin, Lindholm, Tanev, Zadorov, and Vladar exclusively for picks and prospects.
Next season do the same with Mangiapane and Sharangovich. Even being conservative you should be able to get at least 2 first round picks and a couple second/third round picks from that group. Subtract that much talent from the roster and they will be in the running for a top 10 pick as well.
Your rebuilding core is Huberdeau, Kadri, Weegar, Backlund, Coleman, and Andersson. Not good enough to be a playoff team, but there is enough leadership there to prevent the Flames from sliding into Buffalo/Edmonton levels of despair. If Andersson doesn’t want to stay long term then you have another trade chip where you can probably get a first.
Be open to retaining salary in exchange for extra picks. Be open to operating as a “broker” for other teams given the cap space the Flames will have. Be open to signing UFA’s to high dollar, one year deals where they get a clear top of the lineup opportunity and then trade them at the deadline to a contender.
Invest in scouts and analytics. Set an organizational mandate to draft as many players as possible in 2024, 2025, and 2026.
By 2027 hopefully you are on the upswing and ready to contend for the playoffs for the next decade plus. Huberdeau will have 4 years left on his deal and Kadri 2. By this point you can probably afford to buy Kadri out. New building should be ready to go.
Makes for a bleak 4-5 seasons of Flames hockey, but at this point I really don’t see any other path forward.
Treliving was right in trying to go all in with Gaudreau and Tkachuk. If Fox would have signed who knows how different things would be, but when Tkachuk told them he wasn’t signing the rebuild should have been on. I don’t blame him for trying to make it work, but it’s time to accept it didn’t.
Rebuild needs to be on now.
Something along these lines absolutely has to the plan going forward.
I would add in the proposal that Vinny01 made a few pages ago. Trade Huberdeau to Montreal for Gallagher and Andersen. Same bleak 4/5 years, but after that Kadri is hopefully the only truly atrocious contract on the books (assuming Weegar is still a top 6 defenseman, which I guess is far from guaranteed).
I'd even go so far as to try including something else to try to get that 2025 1st back. Would Pelletier be enough? It's sad, but our current group of prospect will be quite deep into their careers by the time this team is ready to compete again. If we can kick the can of their potential down the road 4+ years that's a net benefit in the long term plans.
The issue with Tre is that he eventually lost the owner's trust and yet didn't get fired out of some kind of misplaced loyalty or for the sake of pseudo-stability.
As soon as Murray hired Darryl, Tre should have been mercifully whacked. Someone should have been brought in, like a Lombardi, that could not only work with Darryl, but be the boss of Darryl. Instead, we had a power vaccuum and Sutter thought he was in charge. The Sutter extension on the eve of last season, I think, sent things nuclear between the two and things became "toxic".
If Sutter had someone to report to that he knew and respected, I doubt we see any of the nonsense we saw last year. And maybe the roster would look a little nicer too.
I think there is something to this. Treliving was not the right boss for Sutter. Maybe at that point of his life, nobody would have been (and that is mostly on Sutter) but these two were a forced marriage and it didn't end up working for anyone.
Well other than we did get a series win so there is that.
Something along these lines absolutely has to the plan going forward.
I would add in the proposal that Vinny01 made a few pages ago. Trade Huberdeau to Montreal for Gallagher and Andersen. Same bleak 4/5 years, but after that Kadri is hopefully the only truly atrocious contract on the books (assuming Weegar is still a top 6 defenseman, which I guess is far from guaranteed).
I'd even go so far as to try including something else to try to get that 2025 1st back. Would Pelletier be enough? It's sad, but our current group of prospect will be quite deep into their careers by the time this team is ready to compete again. If we can kick the can of their potential down the road 4+ years that's a net benefit in the long term plans.
I don't see any reason why Montreal would do either of those deals. What's the benefit for them?
I think there is something to this. Treliving was not the right boss for Sutter. Maybe at that point of his life, nobody would have been (and that is mostly on Sutter) but these two were a forced marriage and it didn't end up working for anyone.
Well other than we did get a series win so there is that.
For sure. At the same time, I believe that Sutter knew what type of team Brad had assembled and that it wasn't nearly good enough, and with that and every ounce of his coaching abilities he got them to within a point or two of playoffs. I don't think this version of the team will get anywhere near that. I hope I'm wrong.
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I wish someone made a gif of Bean from his failure interview where he said something to the effect of "don't you want to see what a Vezina finalist goaltender can do with this team next year". That could be the opposite of the ring of fire song after wins.
