Thoughts on Treliving so far?

[Fighting Banana Slug]

Originally Posted by New Era

Next time don't dream up things that a poster has never suggestedand try and stay focused on the issue at hand. Trelivings desire for another goaltender is irrelevant on the fact that he created a bad situation by having too many goaltenders heading to camp and was indecisive about addressing the issue after the fact.

So it would have been better to not have not signed Ramo? I don't understand what he should have done in your view. I still don't see that having the "three headed monster" was the issue. Ortio never played, so it was really two goalies who played poorly (and the team in front of them as well). It may have hurt Ortio's development, but the team believed he was close to being ready and didn't want to lose him to waivers. Fact is, he sucked once given the opportunity and is still struggling in the AHL by all accounts.

As I had posted when all of this went on: Two goalies are better than 3. But having 3 shouldn't crater their tender little egos. None of them grabbed the starting job at the beginning of the year, and that is on them.

[burnitdown]

Originally Posted by DiracSpike

The other thing about Treliving is the guy works his butt off. He's in on every trade offer, constantly phones around the league, and just generally has a bulldog mentality. When a GM says "we didn't know ___ was avaiable" that's just code for saying they didnt do a good enough job, I can guarantee Treliving will never say that. He took Kylington just before mutliple GM's were about to, that's no accident.

Also I agree that the goalie situation is getting way overblown, I don't think anyone can argue re-signing Ramo wasn't the best call.

I wouldn't put too much stock in the "he's in every trade offer" rumours. Most sites (including TSN) will list most Canadian cities as "in the mix" to draw interest to their site and drive up their viewers. It seems like Toronto, Montreal, and Edmonton are also always in every trade discussion...conveniently.

Also, Kylington slid in the draft so it's not like he traded up in the first round and scooped him up before other GMs had the chance. As it turns out, it looks like a great value pick so far...but almost all the GMs passed on him twice so it's a stretch to say he stole him before other GMs took him.

Finally, Ramo has worked out decently but my issue is the 1-year deal. Wouldn't we be in a much stronger position if we had him locked in for 2-3 years? Then we could search for a 1B goalie in the off-season and we wouldn't be totally screwed if we didn't land a decent option? I'm still baffled why we'd want to go into the season with our two goalies on expiring deals. The indecisiveness will cost us this off-season when we're forced to sign 2 UFA goalies or trade for someone's back-up with zero leverage.

[Lanny_McDonald]

^^^ Yet that decision, and the inability of the personnel to be handled properly, is exactly what started us on the path to a bottom of the barrel team. This thread is funny. A and B grade ratings for a guy that has the 26th team in the NHL? These guys are judged on their ability to get results. The guy isn't getting them. He has made some good moves, but he has made some bad ones. The end results have not been good for us this year. Treliving is responsible for those results.

[Badgers Nose]

I think A = cup contender
B = playoffs
C = playoff contender
D = .500 record
F = losing record

So he is generously a C for me.

[Badgers Nose]

Originally Posted by New Era

^^^ Yet that decision, and the inability of the personnel to be handled properly, is exactly what started us on the path to a bottom of the barrel team. This thread is funny. A new B grade ratings for a guy that has the 26th team in the NHL? These guys are judged on their ability to get results. The guy isn't getting them. He has made some good moves, but he has made some bad ones. The end results have not been good for us this year. Treliving is responsible for those results.

Fans are really enamoured with this mediocre bunch. The kids are exciting to watch play. But there are lots of dead weight players too.

[MrMastodonFarm]

Originally Posted by T@T

Even I could have found a sucker to take Wideman after he got 15 G and 56 pts last year.
.

Not with 2 years and ten million still to pay out you couldn't.

Wideman's contract is consistent throughout the 5 years, if it was weighed more in the first two and cheaper in the last two then yeah, it'd be a movable deal, but it ain't easy panning off ten million bucks.

[GranteedEV]

Not gonna assign a letter grade, but

- I'm not a fan of Treliving's "sign vets long term to create competition" approach. Competition should exist but it should allow for flexibility. Signing Derek Grant, Setoguchi and Trading for Shore/Hamilton were good examples of creating competition. Bringing in Engelland, Raymond were bad examples because they didn't make the team better yet held/have held back guys like Wotherspoon, Kulak, Granlund, and Baertschi from taking the next step (Granlund being a center I see as a direct consequence of that). No, I don't buy that Engelland is a better hockey player than Tyler Wotherspoon. He's just a "more veteran bad hockey player" than Tyler Wotherspoon. I also don't buy that Brandon Bollig is a better hockey player than David Wolf. The fact that the Blackhawks, who are not even "rebuilding" can churn out multiple NHL rookies on a yearly basis and our only non-top-5OA-pick-rookie this year didn't even last a 9 game audition says a lot about Treliving's philosophy. I honestly think this had some effect on Ortio's miserable season too, though I'm not going to get too far into the three goalie situation.

- I like the Gio/Backlund/Bouma/Ferland/Hamilton contracts. But we cannot afford to retain a guy like Russell and it will be crippling long term if we do so.

- The Brodie extension was by far his best move. The delay on extending Monahan is making me nervous, especially as I don't believe has shown he's worth a high AAV deal as a center.

- Treliving needs to make it clear that Bennett be developed as a center and Hamilton get top 3 minutes, because Hartley won't do so without some "guidance". I really liked that Treliving made it clear that Granlund needed to play with skill players like Hudler/Bennett rather than Brandon Bollig, otherwise Granlund would also be trending towards busting.

Originally Posted by Frank MetaMusil

Or Niemi for close to the same coin as Ramo.

Niemi is older, signed for longer term, and has higher AAV.

[MrMastodonFarm]

Originally Posted by New Era

^^^ Yet that decision, and the inability of the personnel to be handled properly, is exactly what started us on the path to a bottom of the barrel team. This thread is funny. A and B grade ratings for a guy that has the 26th team in the NHL? These guys are judged on their ability to get results. The guy isn't getting them. He has made some good moves, but he has made some bad ones. The end results have not been good for us this year. Treliving is responsible for those results.

They're judged on results based on expectations. If Treliving is viewed as setting the team up good long term at this point he's winning.

[codynw]

Originally Posted by New Era

^^^ Yet that decision, and the inability of the personnel to be handled properly, is exactly what started us on the path to a bottom of the barrel team. This thread is funny. A and B grade ratings for a guy that has the 26th team in the NHL? These guys are judged on their ability to get results. The guy isn't getting them. He has made some good moves, but he has made some bad ones. The end results have not been good for us this year. Treliving is responsible for those results.

If you're grading him on this season alone, sure it hasn't been great. I'm looking at how what he's done will affect the team long term. I think he's done a good job so far when you think about it like that.

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by MrMastodonFarm

They're judged on results based on expectations. If Treliving is viewed as setting the team up good long term at this point he's winning.

I will agree with that. I guess it depends on expectations. Were the expectations to be a playoff team and show some growth, or be Edmonton bad and be thinking about the draft before the all star game? I had higher expectations than being tied with the Oilers and paying more attention to the draft than the playoff races. I can't believe that so many people would be content with this outcome. I can't imagine that Treliving's bosses are excited about the outcomes either.

[Phanuthier]

PSA : Before we get too John-Scott-concerned and outraged at re-signing Russell, he actually hasn't been re-signed to this $16M 4 year contract yet.

[Zulu29]

Originally Posted by New Era

^^^ Yet that decision, and the inability of the personnel to be handled properly, is exactly what started us on the path to a bottom of the barrel team. This thread is funny. A and B grade ratings for a guy that has the 26th team in the NHL? These guys are judged on their ability to get results. The guy isn't getting them. He has made some good moves, but he has made some bad ones. The end results have not been good for us this year. Treliving is responsible for those results.

Jeez give the guy a few more years to cement his influence on the team before you hang him out to dry. What are you expecting right now? Playoffs last year,conference finals this year? He is doing what the majority of posters on this board were pulling their hair out for someone to do, namely do a rebuild in a responsible way with no short cuts.

But seriously, ignoring the goaltending situation what would you have him do differently?

[Frank MetaMusil]

Originally Posted by GranteedEV

Niemi is older, signed for longer term, and has higher AAV.

3 years older, signed for 2 more seasons, and 700k more on the cap hit. He's also a much better goalie than Ramo is.

[AltaGuy]

My biggest beef with Treliving is that - in my view - he didn't really recognize the true strength of our team's speed last season. I know he wanted to get bigger to play more of a puck possession game, but we really wore down a lot of teams last season with relentless skating.

I miss Byron.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by New Era

I will agree with that. I guess it depends on expectations. Were the expectations to be a playoff team and show some growth, or be Edmonton bad and be thinking about the draft before the all star game? I had higher expectations than being tied with the Oilers and paying more attention to the draft than the playoff races. I can't believe that so many people would be content with this outcome. I can't imagine that Treliving's bosses are excited about the outcomes either.

Treliving's bosses are probably smart enough to recognise that this is a non-linear process that will take years to cycle through, and that not every setback is worth starting over with new personnel.

By my reading of your posts, I can only imagine the sort of senseless, chaos-inducing turnover that would ensue if the owners were to take your advice.

[Johnny Rotten]

I gave Brad a "B", but I could also give him an "Incomplete"...I want to see what the Flames' brass does over the next few months (including the trade deadline, draft, and free agency).

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by New Era

If Treliving is going to get credit for his good moves/decisions then he has to take some #### for his bad ones. You shouldn't be able to pull a Tinordi and ignore the stuff you choose because it hurts the narrative you're pushing. All of the moves and decisions come into play and count.

Well first off I deleted stuff on the good and the bad so pretty sure I'm not pushing an agenda at all.

I just don't see Byron and Wilson as things to get my gitch in a knot over.

[Fighting Banana Slug]

Originally Posted by New Era

I will agree with that. I guess it depends on expectations. Were the expectations to be a playoff team and show some growth, or be Edmonton bad and be thinking about the draft before the all star game? I had higher expectations than being tied with the Oilers and paying more attention to the draft than the playoff races. I can't believe that so many people would be content with this outcome. I can't imagine that Treliving's bosses are excited about the outcomes either.

I doubt anyone is content with the outcome, but when judging a GM, you need to look at the longer term and his plan a little more broadly than 44 games. If the question was "How would you grade the Flames this year", you will have no argument from me that they are in the C range, based on expectations.

I think BT made moves this past year that made the team better. His decision making is sound. No doubt the goaltending is one of the biggest issues this year, but given where they were (Hiller signed, Ortio expected to push), signing Ramo is easily justified, not just in retrospect. Would have been nice to sign him to a smaller number, and that is on BT, but it doesn't make enough of a difference to bury the guy.

Again, unless they were chasing Talbot/Jones (which I am not convinced is a fix), I am not sure what would have magically fixed a difficult goaltending situation.

[codynw]

Originally Posted by Bingo

Well first off I deleted stuff on the good and the bad so pretty sure I'm not pushing an agenda at all.

I just don't see Byron and Wilson as things to get my gitch in a knot over.

The Wilson PTO is going to cause a domino effect that leads to relocation eventually. Thanks, Treliving.

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

By my reading of your posts, I can only imagine the sort of senseless, chaos-inducing turnover that would ensue if the owners were to take your advice.

Oh the chaos I would recommend! Go into the season with a solid goaltending tandem. Dump garbage players that aren't performing. Continue promoting youth where possible and get them the NHL experience they need to prove whether they have the tools to play at this level. Develop some level of accountability for the coaching staff and judge them based on results. Oh, the chaos!!! Oh, the drama!!!