Brad Treliving needs to go

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by Vinny01

I think this team is on a 2.5 year timeline. They need to be a contender by the end of Sutter/Treliving’s deals are up or it will be a complete reset in my opinion.

Agreed.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by Saqe

So in essence Treliving wasn't willing to pay the price. Maybe it would've meant moving someone out, sure, but again the alternative is this current situation where the team is spinning it's wheels.

There are differences between being "unwilling" and "unable." It is not worth revisiting the MASSIVE discussions surrounding why this trade was simply not possible in the first place, but suffice it to say it was not a deal the Flames were able to make—at least not without very seriously jeopardizing their own roster, and salary cap situation.

But if your argument is that Treliving was unwilling to pay any price for this player, then I will agree with you, and am thankful that he was a hell of a lot more sensible about it than you seem to be.

[Flamenspiel]

Originally Posted by Scroopy Noopers

Not this short sighted argument again, like the organization would have made this trade without being prepared to pay him accordingly.

That was clearly not available, similar to Kadri. He was only available as a rental and a short term acquisition.

[Aarongavey]

Originally Posted by Flamenspiel

That was clearly not available, similar to Kadri. He was only available as a rental.

I agree, no sense looking back. What we know is that after 7 years Brad's team sucks. It does not really have any elite prospects under the age of 22, it has limited tradeable pieces that could bring back elite players on their own and the team lacks the depth at all positions to do a multiple player trade for an elite player. So it is a tough situation to dig out from under for the organization.

[howard_the_duck]

Originally Posted by Vinny01

I think this team is on a 2.5 year timeline. They need to be a contender by the end of Sutter/Treliving’s deals are up or it will be a complete reset in my opinion.

Which is the frustrating part.

How do you become a contender without a ready-to-contend core? You might as well fast forward 2.5 years to the inevitable rebuild.

It shouldn't take this long to decide whether or not to rebuild.

I look at the Raptors as an interesting comp. As a fringe playoff team that's battle tested, they could trade picks/prospects to add to the core and take another run at it. Instead, they appear to have acknowledged where they're at, will sell on some tradeable assets, and bottom out to build through the draft and their young talent. In the span of 2.5 years they'll have won it all, rebuilt, and very well have a ready-to-contend playoff team if they play their cards right.

Unlike the Raptors, the Flames are living in the 'one last run' approach through two roster cycles and it's incredibly painful to watch again.

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by howard_the_duck

Which is the frustrating part.

How do you become a contender without a ready-to-contend core? You might as well fast forward 2.5 years to the inevitable rebuild.

It shouldn't take this long to decide whether or not to rebuild.

I look at the Raptors as an interesting comp. As a fringe playoff team that's battle tested, they could trade picks/prospects to add to the core and take another run at it. Instead, they appear to have acknowledged where they're at, will sell on some tradeable assets, and bottom out to build through the draft and their young talent. In the span of 2.5 years they'll have won it all, rebuilt, and very well have a ready-to-contend playoff team if they play their cards right.

Unlike the Raptors, the Flames are living in the 'one last run' approach through two roster cycles and it's incredibly painful to watch again.

Except for this cycle it would be one first & last run

[Red]

Originally Posted by Flamenspiel

That was clearly not available, similar to Kadri. He was only available as a rental and a short term acquisition.

Right, Treliving was in on the trade at the 11th hour knowing that Stone wasn't going to sign here. The guy was dangling top picks and prospects for a rental.
Makes perfect sense

[Saqe]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

There are differences between being "unwilling" and "unable." It is not worth revisiting the MASSIVE discussions surrounding why this trade was simply not possible in the first place, but suffice it to say it was not a deal the Flames were able to make—at least not without very seriously jeopardizing their own roster, and salary cap situation.

But if your argument is that Treliving was unwilling to pay any price for this player, then I will agree with you, and am thankful that he was a hell of a lot more sensible about it than you seem to be.

Maybe taking a risk would've been the right move, maybe not, either way now the team is still in square one after seven years. None of his moves ultimately moved the needle at all and I can't see the results being any different in the future either if he's in charge.

[Vinny01]

Originally Posted by howard_the_duck

Which is the frustrating part.

How do you become a contender without a ready-to-contend core? You might as well fast forward 2.5 years to the inevitable rebuild.

It shouldn't take this long to decide whether or not to rebuild.

I look at the Raptors as an interesting comp. As a fringe playoff team that's battle tested, they could trade picks/prospects to add to the core and take another run at it. Instead, they appear to have acknowledged where they're at, will sell on some tradeable assets, and bottom out to build through the draft and their young talent. In the span of 2.5 years they'll have won it all, rebuilt, and very well have a ready-to-contend playoff team if they play their cards right.

Unlike the Raptors, the Flames are living in the 'one last run' approach through two roster cycles and it's incredibly painful to watch again.

Funny that you bring the Raptors up. In 2013 they looked to be ready to tear the team down. They sent Rudy Gay to Sacramento and came extremely close to trading Lowry to the Knicks. The team took off after their deal with the Kings and it sparked the best run in franchise history. Had the Knicks not pulled out of the Lowry deal the Raptors don’t win a championship in 2019.

This current Raptors team is looking at moving potential UFA players and doing nothing different than the Flames would do if they completely fall out of the race and sell of their pending free agents as rentals. The Raptors are also on a 9 game slide and not a fringe playoff team anymore. Just a bad comparison in my opinion.

I think there is a large chunk of this team that needs to be turned over. I don’t think there is a hope that the Flames do anything other than try and win as long as they employ Sutter as coach. There is no rebuild coming this summer but I think we see massive changes. I am prepared to be extremely underwhelmed by the returns our former core players get in trades.

[GreenLantern2814]

Originally Posted by Red

Right, Treliving was in on the trade at the 11th hour knowing that Stone wasn't going to sign here. The guy was dangling top picks and prospects for a rental.
Makes perfect sense

It’d be great if the next GM had the same approach as Kevin Chevaldayoff, but that seems way too wishful.

[powderjunkie]

The amazing thing to me is that BT's most recent big moves have mostly come to fruition better than expected (so far):

Tanev = A+
Markstrom = A?
Lucic trade = far better than expected; it certainly improves on the '18-19 roster that people cling to for false hope

Lindholm = better than expected
Hanifin = this season showing another level

Derek Ryan = delivering fair value for the span of his contract

Add to that Mangiapane blowing expectations out of the water for a 6th rd pick, and Dubé and Andersson outperforming expectations for their age/role (last year outperforming, this year regressing to a reasonable expectation)


I suppose my point is the overall build must be really rotten to be failing so badly despite the high success rate of recent moves. I think you could even add Tkachuk to the list above; even if you think his play today is closer to his true self than '18-20, it still exceeds reasonable expectations for a 6OA pick.

The glaring negatives:
- Extending Geoff Ward certainly didn't pan out, but IMO it's still hard to assess how bad it really was
- The existence of Neal/Lucic on the roster at all. Didn't preclude success in '18-19 and most teams have an anchor like this, but it is certainly a blunder

Notable:
- The general failure to manage assets values (from Brodie/Hamonic to JG, etc.) - the caveat here is that this shouldn't have much bearing on the state of roster today as much as the gloomy outlook for the next few seasons.
- Bad luck on Valimaki injury and Bennett development...but these things happen to every team and on balance we've probably had more good luck than bad on the injury and draft pick front.


All of this to say I am highly critical of ownership, Burke, and Treliving for the current state of the team, but I'm fine with leaving BT to play out things out for another few seasons. The big picture plan/mandate has been a bigger problem than execution.

[jg13]

I think we can chalk up the Hamonic trade and Brouwer signing as glaring negatives.

The drafting overall since BT came aboard has been much better but still room for improvement

[howard_the_duck]

Originally Posted by Vinny01

Funny that you bring the Raptors up. In 2013 they looked to be ready to tear the team down. They sent Rudy Gay to Sacramento and came extremely close to trading Lowry to the Knicks. The team took off after their deal with the Kings and it sparked the best run in franchise history. Had the Knicks not pulled out of the Lowry deal the Raptors don’t win a championship in 2019.

This current Raptors team is looking at moving potential UFA players and doing nothing different than the Flames would do if they completely fall out of the race and sell of their pending free agents as rentals. The Raptors are also on a 9 game slide and not a fringe playoff team anymore. Just a bad comparison in my opinion.

I think there is a large chunk of this team that needs to be turned over. I don’t think there is a hope that the Flames do anything other than try and win as long as they employ Sutter as coach. There is no rebuild coming this summer but I think we see massive changes. I am prepared to be extremely underwhelmed by the returns our former core players get in trades.

Say what you will about Lowry, but without great drafting and talent development (see Siakam and Vanvleet), and an unprecedented trade for Leonard, they're nowhere close to a championship, as evidenced by being trounced by the Cavs in the playoffs year after year. So you can focus on not trading Lowry, but that was the first of about 5 or 6 things that they were fortunate on.

The Raps were talking sell well before this 9 game losing streak which effectively ended their playoff hopes. So no, I don't think it's a bad comparison. I'd say the trajectory of both teams in their respective leagues is rather comparable. One accepted their fate, the Flames are caught in the middle yet again.

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by jg13

I think we can chalk up the Hamonic trade and Brouwer signing as glaring negatives.

The drafting overall since BT came aboard has been much better but still room for improvement

Cherry-picking/arbitrary cut-off of 2018. One could argue that the team had their best flash of success despite those blunders (with Lindholm+Ryan playing big roles). Hanifin+Mangi+Andersson+Dube were there as well, but all have improved significantly since that year

I'm just saying that despite so many things going right, it's amazing how bad it is.

[Jiri Hrdina]

The biggest thing that went wrong is that several key players did not take the next step, including Johnny and Monahan, leaving the club with best players that are consistently outplayed by the other team's best players.

To me that's the biggest factor, coupled with Sam not becoming an impact player, that has wrecked this edition of the club and why some sort of reset needs to happen.

The closest similar situation is the Flyers realizing that Carter/Richards weren't going to lead them to a cup. So they moved on and moved them.

That's what I think needs to happen here.

[nik-]

And Carter and Richards were even more impactful than our top players are.

[Scroopy Noopers]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

The biggest thing that went wrong is that several key players did not take the next step, including Johnny and Monahan, leaving the club with best players that are consistently outplayed by the other team's best players.

To me that's the biggest factor, coupled with Sam not becoming an impact player, that has wrecked this edition of the club and why some sort of reset needs to happen.

The closest similar situation is the Flyers realizing that Carter/Richards weren't going to lead them to a cup. So they moved on and moved them.

That's what I think needs to happen here.

Agreed.

Lucky for them though, they already had Giroux in the mix.

[Lanny_McDonald]

Tkachuk is falling into that same category. I'd be shopping everyone on this team right now. Don't like the make up of it for a Sutter system.

[Jiri Hrdina]

Originally Posted by nik-

And Carter and Richards were even more impactful than our top players are.

Jeff Carter peaked with a 46 goal, 84 point season and then started to decline - down to a 36 goal, 66 point season.

Mike Richards peaked at 80 points, 30 goals, and then declined down to 23 goals, 66 points.

Johnny peaked at 36/99 and then has come down to 18/58 points last season (70 games only, so similar production overall)

Sean Monahan peaked at 34 goals, 82 points, and then came down to 22 goals/48 points .

I see it being quite similar no?

[Jiri Hrdina]

Originally Posted by New Era

Tkachuk is falling into that same category. I'd be shopping everyone on this team right now. Don't like the make up of it for a Sutter system.

I'm not opposed to that, including if you can maximize the return for a potential #1 centre.
No one should be untouchable at this stage. Though my focus would be on the forward group.