Thoughts on Treliving so far?

[Super-Rye]

Feaster's drafts were a lot better than Sutter's, his trades were awful though.

Sutter was a good GM for a while, although his drafting needed some work. Sutter's problem is he traded Phaneuf for peanuts and then went nuts.

Doug Risebrough and Craig Button were both WAY worse. Both set this organization back YEARS with their piss poor moves.

[gargamel]

His trades have been excellent, his free agent signings have been mediocre to poor, his re-signings have been a mixed bag, and it's too early to say much about his drafts. That puts him around a C+ in my book, but I'll bump himup to a B because of the confidence he instills when he speaks.

[Phanuthier]

Originally Posted by Super-Rye

Feaster's drafts were a lot better than Sutter's, his trades were awful though.

Sutter was a good GM for a while, although his drafting needed some work. Sutter's problem is he traded Phaneuf for peanuts and then went nuts.

Sure, but Feaster is not a scout. He even said one year that he did not watch a single junior hockey game. The picks are all done by Tod Button.

(So, not that it matters, but the current Flames roster boasts picks during Darryl's tenure of 5 players: Giordano (tryout), Brodie, Backlund, Ferland and Bouma while Feaster left 4: Granlund, Gaudreau, Jooris and Monahan.... though there are prospects still to come.... so you can't say one GM left the team with an empty cup board, and the other re-stocked

[dammage79]

Gave Treliving a C vote.

The good:
The 2 drafts.
Frolik is a homerun in my estimation.
The bombshell trade on draft day for Hamilton.
Hiller was good. Big piece of the puzzle to get the playoffs.
Engelland has been adequate.

The bad:
Raymond. No way to put it. I wanted Raymond come UFA day. It happened, I was hoping for Leafs Raymond, not post back injury Canuck Raymond. Disappointing deal.
The lack of urgency to do anything about the 3 goalie situation. Essentially letting Hartley fart around too long bouncing back and forth between the goalies.

At the end of the day, it's still early-ish rebuild time and Treliing has put together some nice pieces into the roster. The next few steps he takes will dictate a lot of things going forward. I just hope he is active come deadline day and doesn't foolishly re-sign guys like Russell and Hudler (ugh that hurt to say that, Huds is my favorite Flame) .

[AltaGuy]

Originally Posted by Phanuthier

I forgot about another mess left by Feaster (akin to Hagman) - Shane O'Brien. Put on waivers and bought.

So Kotalik, Hagman, Staois (total salary $7M I believe) was left for Feaster, O'Brien, Jones and Wideman (total salary : $11M) left by Feaster.

(Note: I believe Higgins left as a UFA)

I think you're being a little disingenuous about Wideman, who was market value, and without whom we don't make the playoffs last season, let alone the second round.

Also different in that we were nowhere near the cap under Feaster versus where we were with Sutter.

I can see that I'll get nowhere with you on their relative merits, however.

[Super-Rye]

Originally Posted by Phanuthier

Sure, but Feaster is not a scout. He even said one year that he did not watch a single junior hockey game. The picks are all done by Tod Button.

(So, not that it matters, but the current Flames roster boasts picks during Darryl's tenure of 5 players: Giordano (tryout), Brodie, Backlund, Ferland and Bouma while Feaster left 4: Granlund, Gaudreau, Jooris and Monahan.... though there are prospects still to come.... so you can't say one GM left the team with an empty cup board, and the other re-stocked

Sutter's picks have had more time to develop. If you actually look back at Sutter's draft records it's pretty embarrassing.

As for Feaster not actually being a scout, it's true and I won't argue that. It's one of the reasons he's not still the GM.

With that said, however, it takes a good manager to surround himself with good people and a better manager to listen to those people. Feaster did that and deserves some credit.

[Frank MetaMusil]

Originally Posted by Phanuthier

Sure, but Feaster is not a scout. He even said one year that he did not watch a single junior hockey game. The picks are all done by Tod Button.

(So, not that it matters, but the current Flames roster boasts picks during Darryl's tenure of 5 players: Giordano (tryout), Brodie, Backlund, Ferland and Bouma while Feaster left 4: Granlund, Gaudreau, Jooris and Monahan.... though there are prospects still to come.... so you can't say one GM left the team with an empty cup board, and the other re-stocked

Giordano is a great story but wasn't picked. I can't count that one in good faith. Same with Jooris.

Granlund was a great pick, basically finding treasure from trash. Another botched Sutter first rounder (Erixon)

[JJ1532]

I'd agree with those saying he's around the C/B area. Done just fine.

However, what will define him as GM of this organisation is the moves he makes in the couple of years, starting with the next 6 months. He has to make decisions about the UFAs and whether to re-sign them. If he takes a serious run at signing Russell, it has to fit in with the Flames long term plans.

He has to tie Monahan and Gaudreau down to reasonable deals with reasonable term. He has to find extra quality to slot into our top 6. He has to work out what to do with the goaltender situation. Ramo? Ortio? Free agency? He has a to take a serious look at the coaching situation and decide whether moves need to be made to improve things on that front in the near future.

Be interesting to revisit this topic heading into next season around early October time.

[dammage79]

OMG. I completely brain farted lol. He should get and A for the Brodie re-signing alone.

[Phanuthier]

Originally Posted by AltaGuy

I can see that I'll get nowhere with you on their relative merits, however.

If that wasn't already obvious by me stating I think he's the worst NHL GM in the past 2 decades besides Kevin Lowe and Mike Milbury ...

Like I said, I almost gave up on the Flames and hockey all together cause of Feaster. Darryl I actually wanted to see him replaced as GM (post history proves that) but Feaster is a disaster. The original post made was that an argument can be made that Treliving is just as bad as Feaster, or a "vast improvement" to Darryl - not a chance in hell.

[1qqaaz]

I would give Sutter and Burke D's, Treliving a C(+), and Feaster a B.

Drafting is important. As are good free agent signings.

[ricardodw]

Originally Posted by Tinordi

Hard to not give him good marks. He's responsibly stewarding a team in the middle of a rebuild. Most of the complaints will be at the margins such as signing or not signing some depth players or based on hypothetical fan-fictions such as why he didn't trade player x when he had the opportunity.

On hypothetical trade scenarios, we just don't know the markets for these players. Wideman is likely not moveable. I would have loved to have seen the fan reaction to trading Hudler at the draft prior to him falling off a cliff this season. Very difficult to grade him on a performance that we have no information by which to assess performance.

He signed toughness early thinking the team would be pushed around. I don't hold that against him. That's responsible.

He's had a problem with goaltending, but people were singing a different tune last year with how he hit a triple on goaltending. Difficult to really hang the goaltending thing on him, something went wrong in training camp when it was too late to really do anything about it.

In the end, he's traded depreciating assets when he's had the opportunity for futures. He's patiently inserting players into the lineup. He's made good FA acquisitions after his first round of toughness building. He's taking a measured approach to developing prospects, if you're ready you play, if you aren't you continue to develop. He appears to have overpaid on some homegrown contracts but it's a difficult situation to negotiate if you don't have replacements. And he isn't afraid of pulling the trigger on a big deal if it makes sense for the longer-term window of this team.

What's not to like?

How stupid would a Flame fan base have to be not to see that Hudler was done as a Flame after Frolik and Hamilton were signed, Hudler is doing Trevling a favour by not playing up to last years level.

[Gaudfather]

I graded him a B.

His biggest weakness so far is it is still not evident we have a long term plan for the net with a reliable above average goaltender. Ortio does not look like he has taken a step forward this year, Gilles is hard to assess due to his injury, McDonald is a big question mark.

Treliving needs to fix this area before he can ever get top marks.

[Hackey]

Originally Posted by Super-Rye

Feaster's drafts were a lot better than Sutter's, his trades were awful though.

Sutter was a good GM for a while, although his drafting needed some work. Sutter's problem is he traded Phaneuf for peanuts and then went nuts.

Doug Risebrough and Craig Button were both WAY worse. Both set this organization back YEARS with their piss poor moves.

Feasters drafting is so over-rated around here. Other than Gaudreau no one has made an impact on this team. Maggie the monkey could have picked Monahan. Sutter drafted Brodie so they each have an unreal 4th round pick.

[TheOnlyBilko]

Originally Posted by heep223

To be fair though, given the reports that the Flames were in on all the goalies like Jones in the offseason, I'm sure he had a plan but couldn't execute.

.

What sucks about Martin Jones is he already played 4 years here in Calgary right under our noses. Hell he even won a WHL championship for us and I believe he also won WHL goalie of the year one season, again literally under our noses. Played in the World Juniors, winning Silver. The guy went undrafted in the NHL and we didn't even offer him a tryout. It still bothers me.

[Vinny01]

Treliving inherited a good situation for any GM. He got a team that had great cap/contract flexibility, and owners that were willing to spend to the cap. In terms of prospects he had Monahan coming off a rookie year and Gaudreau coming off a Hobey Baker win. In addition he had the 4th overall pick in a draft where there were 4 really high end prospects before a drop off in talent at the 5 spot.

Many of us remember the first draft where there were tumors the Flames were going to take on Ribero and Ward's contract and potentially get the 7th and 12th picks in the draft on top of their own 4th overall. Those trades never occurred. Like Feaster the year before Treliving took the no brainer pick with his first rounder. That summer he was not willing to commit to more than 3 years on contracts. The Flames pushed to keep Cammalleri but he took the 5 year offer from the Devils. The Flames in need of scoring brought in Mason Raymond who turned a PTO the summer before into a 1 year deal and 45pt season with the Leafs. The Deryk Engellend contract left the hockey world scratching their heads as he was always a 6/7 in Pitt getting 3 years at nearly $3M per from the Flames. He also traded a 3rd to the Hawks for Bollig and drafted huge forward Hunter Smith with a 2nd round pick.

In hindsight all of those non prospect acquisitions look questionable. Funny enough the Wngellend signing looks to be the best as he has been fairly solid since mid Feb of last year. Raymond will be out of the league when his contract expires and Bollig came with 3 years term left on his deal and is a 13th forward.

On season I think he made a great move trading Glencross and getting good value. The Sven Beartschi trade had to happen and while it sucked trading a once beloved prospect to a bitter rival I trust he took the best offer on the table. It also sounded like he had little choice but to make the trade.

He hesitated to make any major splash when Gio went down but managed to pluck Schlemko off waivers and that proved to be a solid move.

The team shocked basically everyone last year. Gaudreau lived up to the hype. Instead of a sophomore slump Monahan takes a huge leap forward. Guys like Hudler Bouma, Wideman, Brodie, Gio, Russell all have career seasons. The team somehow makes the playoffs when many expected a bottom 5 finish. In the playoffs a fairly no name prospect Ferland emerges as a force and the team makes it past round 1 for the first time in 11 years. Many pundits said the Flames got all the luck and were poised to fall back. Trelivng was in a tough spot as the fan base was excited and ready to win now and the team far out performed his expectations.

I think the first time he really impressed me was the Hamilton trade. Getting a freshly turned 22 year old 6'5, smooth skating, right shot Dman was a steal. Following that up by getting Frolik was another great move. He added a 22 year old and 27 year old to the team that filled big holes but also for long term. He searches far and wide for a goalie and when he couldn't get one he kept Ramo for one more year.

There was definitely competition at camp as there were too many forwards, D, and goalies. With little room up front the Flames exposed and lost Paul Byron on waivers while no one claimed $3.15M Raymond. On the blueline an injury to Beodie allowed young Bret Kulak to get some games. Euro signing Nakladal and prospect Wotherspoon were sent down with Kulak not far behind once Brodie returned to action. The goalies were a mess and both Ramo and Ortio were waived at one point. The team itself looked like a mess compared to last year and looked like the worst Flames team in well over a decade.

The team goes into the summer needing to sign young first liners Monahan and Gaudreau as well as sign 2 goalies. There is already 6 D signed for $28.75M next season with #4 D Russell unsigned.

I give him a solid B for the Brodie contract and Hamilton trade. I didn't mind the Gio, Backlund, or Bouma contract. Not a fan of Engellend, Raymond or Bollig moves.

Big deadline coming up that could bump this grade up or down depending what happens. This team does not look like it can do damage in the playoffs so the key should be selling now and building for the future.

[dino7c]

Originally Posted by 1qqaaz

I would give Sutter and Burke D's, Treliving a C(+), and Feaster a B.

Drafting is important. As are good free agent signings.

Feaster fluked out one draft pick and traded Iginla and Jaybo (with a year left on his deal) for players who may or may not ever play in the league as regulars

[domenichelly]

Hi. I think Treliving is doing a very poor job as GM. We can judge a GM work on where team was on his start and where this team on his end (or now).

Feaster took old team with no cap space. Poor contracts and so on. When he was fired he left a team with a lowest cap in NHL and with young leaders with low amount of poor contracts. I cant say that he did all excelent but last year's team was almost built by him. Also a very good drafting.

Treliving took this process and now we have many poor contracts and little cap space. We are in 5 bottom with mostly full salary cap. So we are now near Sutter's era. Also it is a myth that we are a young team. We have 6 young players for now and future. Also average age is also not the lowest in NHL. And i think it is more interesting to see young players play at NHL level than look at Raymond, Engelland and so on. Also now don't have high hockey skill players (top 6). I like guys like Bouma and Ferland but it is not their job to play on top lines. Also we all remember 3 goalie monster mistake.

I still miss for those gamse where we had 8 AHL players last year

[N-E-B]

I gave him a B because I like what he's done so far. I think he's added two huge pieces in Bennett and Hamilton, but I don't think any GM deserves an A unless they build a Stanley Cup champion. I'm hoping that in the near future Brad can earn that A.

[pgsieve]

B but likely would have been an A if the three headed goalie monster was dealt differently.

The good:
-Frolik
-Hamilton
-The drafts (last 2)
-Seto/Ryan Wilson: this cost nothing and may have turned into something. I'd rather have a GM that would try than one who didn't.

The bad:
- Losing Byron and the Schlemcat
- The three headed goalie monster

I agree with some of the posters that guys like Raymond and Engelland were brought in to get to the cap floor. I also firmly believe that a guy like Raymond still had value in that he provided an option, got you to the floor, and provided leadership along the way (Ask Bennett)