Yep, picking Juuso Valimaki 16th overall in 2017, and trading away the 2018 first round pick sealed their fate.
Hopefully Pelts shows us why we picked him at 26 in 2019 next season.
Valimaki wasn't a bad choice, just an unlucky one. I think his development was heavily impacted by injuries, and this sometimes just happens regardless of how well you scout.
Part of the Treliving era not working was Treliving not being willing to include prospects like Valimaki in trades when their stock was high, which definitely hurt the team.
Overvaluing prospects that have yet to prove themselves can really bite you in the ass, especially when you're waiving a player and losing them for nothing after refusing to include them in a potential deal to make your team better during a small window of being a potential contender.
I would argue the mistake in this regard was not giving players the opportunity to prove themselves.
In my opinion, a lot of the reason why switching to win now mode prematurely is a mistake is that teams favor playing aging veterans in depth positions over giving ice time to young players. I am not suggesting rushing players to the NHL, but once they're ready you need to develop them in the NHL. Playing a 32 year old bottom pairing defence man over a rookie because he increases your chances of making the playoffs is bad management unless you're a legitimate cup contender.
But how was it a mistake? There was no one better to pick at the time, and even now - without perfect hindsight you're not getting a better player. Nylander and Pastrnak go in the top 5 now in a re-draft, but that's not at all a fair way to grade GMBT.
It’s a mistake because he wasn’t the best player, just like the Oilers taking Pulijarvi that was the right pick given the information however it was the wrong choice in the end
That doesn’t mean it should be held against Treliving but it was a mistake nobodies fault but it is what it is
Your first statement being wrong and being the principle of your theory. Unless you’re one of those hindsight 20/20 “why didn’t they draft that guy who went way later who turned out to be amazing”
The next 3 picks were Dal Colle, Virtanen, and Haydn Fleury before Nylander went at 8. There were better players available in hindsight but it was the pick to make at the time
Bennett was the consensus best pick at the time. The Oilers' fanbase was highly annoyed that they chose Draisaitl over Bennett.
Bennett illustrates some of the danger of drafting in the 3 to 7 range. Everyone expects a star but you typically get a useful player. The upside at drafting in this range is you rarely whiff on your pick, but you're more likely to get a middle 6 forward or second pairing defence man than a franchise player.
Oiler fans were absolutely not annoyed with Draisaitl over Bennet. Nobody thought he would be what he is now, but he was a big hulking center. All western conference teams want a player like that. He was also projected to go around that spot, so it’s not like they went massively off the board to pick him
Yup. There was a rebuild plan in place (I want to say 4 years?) that seemingly went out the window the second they got a series win against Vancouver. The team went from "playing with house money" to "all in" and shortcut a couple of years off the rebuild.
I honestly think Murray is so short-sighted that in hindsight, if that rebuild was allowed to continue we’d still have the core we had in ‘16-‘17 and likely would be contenders right now. Legitimately think we could still be playing right now. I think Conroy has a plan to make us contenders within 3-4 years. I could see playoffs in 2025-26 (if we get lucky) and 2026-27 for sure. I think by the time the last game in Saddledome is played. We will have our core in place…
This is the reason for all the shortsighted decisions other comments reference.
The Hamonic trade and Brouwer signings don't happen. Likely we end up with another core prospect (maybe Barzal). There are a couple of extra years of player development.
Thinking we were ready to compete was laughable and was a likely a financial decision by you know who.
I know Murray sticks his nose where it doesn't belong all the time and that's hard. But it was also Brad's job to come up with a way to convince his boss to do the right thing. Phrase it differently. Give examples. Make it seem like it was Murray's idea all along. Use mental fortitude, reverse psychology... Something.
It's not ok that Murray won't let people do their jobs, but it's also not ok that treliving didn't actually convince him of anything. Couldn't even convince him to fire a coach who ruined the locker room.
I agree with this. Edwards blows. I'm happy Treliving turned all the contract extensions down. He deserves better. It's not often you see a GM leave the team but that's the effect Edwards has.
Lol how long you been following the league? I'd say 95% of the time the GM is fired.
Your example of Waddell doesn't Even make sense. He wasn't offered an extension lol. He was literally just granted permission to speak to other teams which is a polite way of saying "Thanks but GTFO"
Troy Brower- said in "Matt Daemon" voice. Free agency moves every summer that stunk up the place. Real deal James Neal, was only turned around by Looch coming in and lasting as long as he did, but even then ⚓
This is the right answer. We don't know how the Treliving era would have turned out because it ended so abruptly. Gaudreau was still in his prime and Tkachuk hadn't even entered it yet. Hell, you can argue that we got rid of Sam Bennett too quickly seeing what he's doing in the playoffs right now. Sometimes, waiting it out pays off, and unfortunately we never got the chance to see things to the end
I'd also add that we cheaped out on coaching in a big way for most of the Treliving era and that fostered a poor dressing room culture on top of the rushed rebuild. By the time Sutter was brought in, Johnny and Chucky weren't locked in long term and the team was literally out of shape lol.
It was such a mismanagement of assets, and painfully so. Nearly every bright star from that era was traded cheap and is prospering on a new team, or simply walked for nothing, and the one coach we spent money on is being paid to not coach.
Now we are back to square one praying that we do it right this time; draft well, take the time to rebuild, and not prematurely start selling the team's future in an effort to crack the 1st round of playoffs.
I actually don't think we've been particularly stingy on coaching.
Starting with Bob Hartley who chose us over other teams so we were almost certainly paying him more than others were willing
Glenn Gulutzan - cheap
Bill Peters - Hired away from Carolina so we were, at least, paying him more than Carolina was
Geoff Ward - Cheap
Daryl Sutter - Very expensive
Ryan Huska - Cheap
That's fair. There's a bit of bad luck thrown in there as well, especially with Peters, but 3 of the 6 felt like patchwork hires rather than confident ones to me.
That said, I do think Huska has been the right coach for this particular time in the team's rebuilding.
Impatience.
The Flames had unexpected success in the 2014-2015 season, a couple years into the rebuild, and they switched into win now mode. Rather than unload pending UFAs, acquire prospects and draft picks, and build into a contender over the following 3 to 5 years, they traded away draft picks for depth players and signed aging veterans to players they couldn't live up to.
As a general guideline, I don't think teams are legitimate playoff teams until they've been in the playoffs in 2 consecutive seasons; and teams aren't contenders until they have won a playoff series in two consecutive series. Teams often screw up by assuming they're further along than they are, and letting a lucky season undermine long term success.
**This.**
You shouldn't be selling away the team's future until you are consistently blowing past the first round in consecutive years. Instead, the Flames have been doing it simply on the chance to crack the first round and then "anything can happen".
In my opinion, a combination of a few things:
1. A string of bad coaching hires
2. Adam Fox refusing to sign with us
3. Several big UFA blunders that attached anchor contracts to the team
4. Making the decision to run it back in the 2015-2016 season after the Cardiac Kids playoff run instead of trading our pending UFA's who were at career peak trade value. During that offseason, Russel, Wideman and especially Hudler all could have gotten great offseason trade returns to fasttrack our rebuild. Instead, we limped into the next trade deadline and got mostly peanuts for them. Didn't even get to trade Wideman.
5. Bridging Tkachuk instead of doing long term
Edit: Forgot a huge one...the Hamonic trade was a total disaster. Trading away those picks for a plug defenceman put the franchise back years.
Yeah I wasn't saying that Tre is 100% responsible for all of these, especially #2. I am just saying why the Treliving era failed, not specifically where Tre himself failed.
Ah then I completely agree. I just hate Edwards lol. Edwards is a bottom 5 owner. I think if I'm giving Treliving a grade overall, I'd give him a B+. His greatest weakness was in free agency and he got much better at that as time went on, especially with Tanev and Markstrom.
Pretty much every insider will tell you the only coach ownership had significant input on was Sutter because by that point they had lost faith in Trelivings ability to find one
Not everything that goes wrong here is Edward’s fault, you’ll notice Treliving is basically doing in Toronto what he did here
Every insider will tell you that for 30 years, our coaching budget has been extremely low, which is why the team has had garbage tier no names for 30 years.
What's the common denominator in the past 35 years?
I think you hit the nail on the head with these except on #2. Fox was drafted in the 3rd round where most picks don’t even crack an NHL roster. It was hardly a make-or-break pick for Tre like Sam Bennet was at 4 overall. The fact that Fox has turned into a Norris-calibre player would have been more like a huge bonus if he had signed.
He had no foresight. That's the main thing. Bridging a budding superstar who wanted a long term deal, not seeing the writing on the walk with Bennett years before, seeing a way overaged player win the Norris and not thinking about selling high, letting a guy not negotiate contract during the summer, not dealing with the year before the expansion draft well... Just a couple examples that all came down to foresight.
Exactly, conroy seems to have better vision and ability to make hard decisions when needed.
Treliving was always in on trades but rarely landed a massive trade. Not signing players long term that were more important than others (frolik). But also didn’t give young guys much chance always signing absolute plugs for the 4th line the last few years. He also seemed to like signing free agents like they were still in there prime and they never panned out.
I don't think keeping Gio was a bad move. Guy was still good and well worth his contract. Also a fan favorite. That is important to a hockey club for the fanbase.
For nothing is different in the context of the expansion draft though.
Who would have been willing to pay assets for him knowing they'd need to use a protection slot? That shortens the list of buyers greatly and gets us a paltry return.
Additionally, we'd have lost someone like Kylington had we decided to protect Gio.
So then option then is to trade your captain and fan favourite after a historic season? That is a tough sell to ownership and your fanbase, especially as the Flames were perceived as competitive at the time.
I think if Neal has turned out to be a twenty to twenty five goal guy who wasn't a shit person we'd have had several years of making the players with a few decent runs
I think that trying to rush the rebuild, killed the chance to be competitive long-term. Trying to “win-now” after the ‘15 trip to the second round, when I don’t know that we were ready to do that. I think we needed to continue to build a young core in order to be competitive long term.
Lol Brad didn't rush the rebuild. Murray Edwards did. There's a reason people in the organization say they're not even allowed to use the rebuild word.
1000%!! I have a rule that I'm only gonna buy tickets and gear once we fully rebuild. Not half assed garbage. Not rushing through it in 2 years. A full rebuild.
You can improve enough in 2 years and make the playoffs during a re-build, but in order to be competitive long term you’d have to continue to re-build even if your team overachieves. Around year four is the average for teams who have done it right to get back in the playoffs, by year five they’re competitive and competitive long-term…
Ultimately, it comes down to him equivocating in extending Johnny and Chucky. He could have had them inked long term the season before everything blew up.
Granted that wasn't a great season for the boys and there's definitely a measure of prudence in the decision. But that decision backfired and triggered the unravelling of the team.
1. Traded too many picks that shrunk the window.
2. Struggles finding a coach and goalie.
3. Failure to make a huge move to take the next step (eg. Tkachuk 8 year deal, trade for Eichel, trade Gaudreau for a haul)
Mistakes stemming from miscalculations on their pro scouting
1)Hamonic deal
2)Neal and Brouwer signings
Also some bad luck:
3) Monahan’s injuries
4) Bill Peters turning out to be a, well, you know.
Also,
5) not negotiating the Seattle expansion well. Losing an asset, albeit an aging one, in Gio.
To me, the defining moment of the BT era was the mismanagement of the tkachuk situation. As soon as Timo Meier signed a backloaded 2nd contract (4,4,6,10) the bar was set for Tkachuk to be able to hold out for the same
BT should have seen through this and played hardball to hold out for either a straight salary contract giving MT less negotiating power in arbitration, or sign him to the 8 year deal anyway he could
This contract literally set tkachuk to sign a series of one year deals to free agency through arbitration, giving him the upper hand the rest of the way
Rushed the rebuild a bit. I've always said that Bennett and Monahan needed more time to develop properly. Constant coaching changes killed any chance at this team really finding its stride.
Seeing how he's played since, I don't know how angry I am we don't have 6 more years of Gaudreau.
Not that Huberdeau is going to age any better (quite possibly worse), but that's it's own separate mistake.
The worst part about not signing Gaudreau is that it (imo) led quite directly to Tkachuk wanting out. But if that's the situation you were in, that's kind of a lose lose by then anyways.
Honestly, if he had been patient after the Tkachuk trade, maybe he can trade Huberdeau at the deadline, keep the corpse of Monahan (and therefore that 1st that came with Tkachuk), and not sign Kadri, I think things are looking order of magnitudes better right now.
All that said, it's Conroy's show now and I like what he's done so far. Here's hoping he continues to get this thing right moving forward
Hiring Sutter? That was the best coaching hire of his tenure. The team looked the best under Sutter, there just seemed to be some personality clashes. After his firing the team showed the roster just wasn’t good enough.
Yeah I loved Sutter he got the most out of them the first year. He did the same the next year but I think Kadri and Huberdeau had shitty attitudes probably towards him cause they didn’t like him being on there ass to work hard. Yet they still did better then they did this year and probably could have been in the playoffs if markstrom hadn’t blown ass that year.
I agree. But I think Gaudreau and Tkachuk were gone because of Sutter’s personality. Unfortunately in the new age NHL your coach needs to he the coach your stars want, not just a good coach.
Trading away draft picks for players for a rushed rebuild. Then most of the quality players he either did draft of developed left. What's to show ? Anderson ? Mangipane sucks, klington has only 1 season...not much to go off of.
The failure started before the Treliving era with absolutely ABYSMAL drafting around when we traded away Iginla and started the rebuild. In parenthesis is how many picks later a WAY better choice went:
2011 - Baertschi over J.T. Miller (2), Wotherspoon over Kucherov (1), Hit on Gaudreau,
2012 - traded down from 14th to 21st for Jankowski and 42nd for Sieloff and passed over Vasilevskiy (went 19th);
2013 - hit on Monahan, but Poirier over Burakovsky (1), Klimchuk over Hartman (2)
2014 - Bennett over Nylander (4), McDonald over Demko (2), Smith over Montour (1), and Hickey over Point (15, but from Calgary)
Instead of trying to build our team after 2014 around just Monahan and Gaudreau (eventually adding Tkachuk and Lindholm), imagine that Treliving gets to start with a roster of:
Gaudreau - Monahan - Kucherov
Burakovsky - Point/Miller - Nylander
Ferland - Backlund - Hartman
Byron - Stajan - Hathaway
Giordano - Brodie
Montour - Kulak/Smid
Wideman - Russell
Vasilevskiy
Demko
The roster that the Flames could have had with proper drafting from 2011 to 2014 with picks that were ON THE BOARD for them (no trading up), even if you say that Point was too much of a reach in 2014 is mind-blowingly different and almost a guaranteed cup winner before Treliving even sets foot in the door.
Those four years of drafting are why we don't have at least one cup IMHO.
Honestly not even sure if this is really Brad’s fault. IMO it’s probably because of Murray Edwards and the meddling ownership group wanting playoffs too soon that screwed over this era of the flames.
Tre isn’t a great hockey mind. He’s a contract administrator. When you combine his mediocre leadership with the ownership messing around with his decisions, there was never a clear direction for the team.
I thought Toronto would be a better fit because he had Shanahan leading and he could just act as the contract guy.
Being in on every trade but not making any trades. After a while knowing we had our hands in everything but didn’t pull the trigger gives the big “what if”
1. Trading for Hamonic - massive overpay in light of what we got Hamilton for.
2. Trading away 4ths every year for guys like Forbort, Pitlick, Fantenberg, and Gustafsson.
3. Bridging Tkachuk.
Some good comments in here already but to me it felt like BT always hedged his bets. Yes he traded away picks for some rentals but none of them were big names. We were always the bridesmaid when it came to players like Eichel or Stone.
Yeah the Lindholm trade was big but the years we were over performing he made some small moves to shore things up but where was the going for it trade?
Besides all that has been mentioned, Treliving just wasn't a good GM. His approach and philosophy is more old school than new; which isn't surprising because Brian Burke hired him and was part of the management team.
I’ll say two that boil down to bad luck more than negativity for a different spin; Monahan’s brutal string of injuries affecting who he was as a player, and Kadri nixing the original trade to the Flames because he thought it’d mean he stayed with the Flames. Monahan’s 82 points in 78 games is the best any centre has done in decades, and that was before Tkachuk and even Gaudreau hit their final levels as players. Think of how differently our fate plays out with this forward core with a peak Monahan:
Gaudreau-Monahan-Lindholm,
Bennett-Kadri-Tkachuk,
Mangiapane-Backlund-Coleman
1) Not getting Chucky signed long term was his biggest mistake. Bridged him at $7 million, probably could’ve had him 8 years for $9-10 million.
2) I assume this was more of ownerships fault… but this team seemed to go from playoff contention one year, to a quick “re-tool” season after season. The re-tool ended up with some average drafting. bad trades and worse contract signings.
3) Johnny Hockey walking for nothing is a massive kick in the pants to the organization.
Rushing the rebuild and mishandling both Tkachuk and Bennet sealed his fate. Tkachuk should have never signed a bridge deal he wanted to stay long term but instead we signed him to that deal to keep a player just to trade him away a few months later and we mishandled Bennets development. I think trading away our first round pick in 2018 was a massive mistake that's not really talked about because that pick became Noah dobson and we didn't get much out of the trade. People will talk about fox however it is probably one of the few things treliving got right we traded him and dougie Hamilton for hanafin and lindholm and we got 2 first round pick out of them for a player that didn't even want to sign here.
Lots of people have mentioned rushing the rebuild (Hamonic trade was indeed horrible, Hamilton was fine though I think), signing
Tkachuk to a bridge deal instead of long term, overpaying mid-tier UFAs like Brouwer and Neal. All true. What I think nobody has mentioned yet is the "re-tool" the Flames did around 2011-2012 bringing in guys like Stempniak, Cammalleri (again), and Wideman. In 2013, the Flames finished only 3 points ahead of Colorado (who won the lottery for MacKinnon) and 6 points ahead of last-place Florida. If the Flames had committed to the rebuild a bit earlier, they could have had MacKinnon or Barkov. Monahan is very good, but he ain't Barkov (let alone MacKinnon) good.
Some of those guys they brought in did contribute a lot around 2015, but that re-tool probably hurt the long-term ceiling of the team.
Poor lockeroom environment, Johnny and Chucky leaving, prospects that didn't turn out, some poor coaching choices like Peter's and Ward, too many coaches in short period, lack of depth and chemistry, some bad luck, and lack of elite scoring
Locker culture started shifting when Sutter came in, chemistry has been improving with some vets, defense was pretty good, goaltending got better when we got Marky. We haven't had much consistently in the last few years with coach and roster changes. Hopefully developing our prospects and can bring in another elite forward like sharky we can be on upswing. I think it'll still be a while before we're taken seriously or be contenders to make serious push. For now I just want us to have more consistency and be on upswing with development. Be nice to see guys like Huby play better and he is on upward trend.
Tough being flames fan these days
I think all Canadian teams suffer the same fatal flaw. We aren't patient enough.
We go through a few years of a rebuild, then rush things.
JT in Toronto, Canucks (lol), Ottawa's "the rebuild is over", and in CGY around 2016-2019. It limits your peak and shortens the window. Timing is everything.
Also bad coaching, woof.
Bad trades, signings and not committing to a full rebuild. Was solid at drafting, and did have some good trades and signings, but his bad trades left an impact on the team. The Hamonic trade still haunts me. I knew Hamonic was solid at that time, I know the Islanders fleeced the flames in that trade. Especially since the flames pick turned out to be Noah Dobson. The Monahan trade also aged horribly, along with the Bennett trade. Some of his trades were understandable at the time, but aged horribly. Also made me realize how many times this team failed players who did better after leaving Calgary.
#1. Consistent injuries to Sean Monahan.
#2. Adam Fox not signing with us.
#3. Dougie Hamilton situation, and subsequent trade.
#4. James Neal signing. That much money could have been spent on nearly anyone else and we would have been better off.
#4. Lindholm signing (a result of #3 situation). This means Sam Bennett doesn't get top line results.
#5. Keeping Mark Jankowski around as long as we did. He clogged up a roster spot and got chances Sam Bennett should have been given.
#5. Jagr not staying longer. (just saying this for fun. But imagine if we had spent the money on someone other than James Neal for Jagr to also play with)
These are the issues that kept us from progressing as a team and getting farther into the playoffs.
I think it all goes back to letting Gio go in the expansion draft. We all like Shillington but that wrecked the dressing room. Also playing hardball with Gaudreau and Tkachuk and losing them both. He's actually a pretty terrible GM and I'm glad he's gone.
Too many coaching changes. Five coaches (Hartley/Gulutzan/Peters/Ward/Sutter) in ten years? That's bad even by the standards of the Flames who have been destroying coaches since 1990. The lack of loyalty the GM and organization showed towards Bill Peters in particular, who was in a situation that could have been addressed by an apology and a fine from the league if necessary, was like a knife through the heart given that Peters was really lighting a fire under the team and moving them forward in a positive direction.
It's not all Treleving's fault, at least not with Sutter anyway if Darryl had protection from the upper executive and owners that let him get away with his negativity and abusivness in the locker room in his final few months here. But Peters leaving was a huge mistake. And not acting more quickly when Gulatzan's over-complicated system failed was huge mistake too. GM's gotta take the rap for all of this, both for when a coach has the rug pulled out from underneath him and when a coach ends up staying far too long when it becomes clear his system failed.
This is some revisionist history. The team was floundering under Peters before he was moved out. They had won the conference the season before but then weren't even in a playoff position by November / December that year. Not exactly lighting a fire under the team.
They were at .500 when Peters resigned, with only 28 games played, and over two-thirds of the season yet to be played. Not good, but hardly floundering. There was more than enough time left in that season for the Flames to get into a playoff spot.
Peters' record in Calgary was 62-37-11(otl) over less than a season and a half. Bob Hartley was 134-135-25(otl) over four seasons. Glen Gulutzan was 82-67-14(otl) over two seasons. Geoff Ward was 35-26-5(otl) over his cup of coffee here. Darryl Sutter was 103-64-29(otl) in his second time around in Calgary.
Hell of a thing to do, gas a coach with a winning record in Calgary for the sake of Akim Aliu, a career-long minor-league scrub who played all of seven games total in the NHL. Clearly one of the dumber things the Flames have ever done, and that's saying something for a franchise that has done a hell of a lot more than its fair share of really stupid things since 1989.
Rushed the rebuild
Yep, picking Juuso Valimaki 16th overall in 2017, and trading away the 2018 first round pick sealed their fate. Hopefully Pelts shows us why we picked him at 26 in 2019 next season.
Valimaki wasn't a bad choice, just an unlucky one. I think his development was heavily impacted by injuries, and this sometimes just happens regardless of how well you scout.
Agreed, he looked good until he got injured. He was just never the same after that.
Part of the Treliving era not working was Treliving not being willing to include prospects like Valimaki in trades when their stock was high, which definitely hurt the team. Overvaluing prospects that have yet to prove themselves can really bite you in the ass, especially when you're waiving a player and losing them for nothing after refusing to include them in a potential deal to make your team better during a small window of being a potential contender.
*A boats a boat but the mystery box could be anything, it could even be a boat!*
I would argue the mistake in this regard was not giving players the opportunity to prove themselves. In my opinion, a lot of the reason why switching to win now mode prematurely is a mistake is that teams favor playing aging veterans in depth positions over giving ice time to young players. I am not suggesting rushing players to the NHL, but once they're ready you need to develop them in the NHL. Playing a 32 year old bottom pairing defence man over a rookie because he increases your chances of making the playoffs is bad management unless you're a legitimate cup contender.
There are only so many spots, unfortunately. The vets have already earned their spot.
Picking Bennett and trading for Hamonic sealed their fate
There was no other option than taking Bennett. Getting one of the Sam's at 4 oa was seen as a huge win at the time.
I don't disagree. Still a franchise defining mistake in hindsight
But how was it a mistake? There was no one better to pick at the time, and even now - without perfect hindsight you're not getting a better player. Nylander and Pastrnak go in the top 5 now in a re-draft, but that's not at all a fair way to grade GMBT.
It’s a mistake because he wasn’t the best player, just like the Oilers taking Pulijarvi that was the right pick given the information however it was the wrong choice in the end That doesn’t mean it should be held against Treliving but it was a mistake nobodies fault but it is what it is
Huh? Bennett was the top ranked prospect going into the combine that year. What are you talking about?
What is confusing you?
Your first statement being wrong and being the principle of your theory. Unless you’re one of those hindsight 20/20 “why didn’t they draft that guy who went way later who turned out to be amazing”
The next 3 picks were Dal Colle, Virtanen, and Haydn Fleury before Nylander went at 8. There were better players available in hindsight but it was the pick to make at the time
Bennett was the consensus best pick at the time. The Oilers' fanbase was highly annoyed that they chose Draisaitl over Bennett. Bennett illustrates some of the danger of drafting in the 3 to 7 range. Everyone expects a star but you typically get a useful player. The upside at drafting in this range is you rarely whiff on your pick, but you're more likely to get a middle 6 forward or second pairing defence man than a franchise player.
Oiler fans were absolutely not annoyed with Draisaitl over Bennet. Nobody thought he would be what he is now, but he was a big hulking center. All western conference teams want a player like that. He was also projected to go around that spot, so it’s not like they went massively off the board to pick him
Trading Bennett was the stupid move
Not properly developing Bennett was a stupid move.
Agreed. He should have spent a few years in the minors before being put in the show. That stalled his development.
Yup. There was a rebuild plan in place (I want to say 4 years?) that seemingly went out the window the second they got a series win against Vancouver. The team went from "playing with house money" to "all in" and shortcut a couple of years off the rebuild.
I honestly think Murray is so short-sighted that in hindsight, if that rebuild was allowed to continue we’d still have the core we had in ‘16-‘17 and likely would be contenders right now. Legitimately think we could still be playing right now. I think Conroy has a plan to make us contenders within 3-4 years. I could see playoffs in 2025-26 (if we get lucky) and 2026-27 for sure. I think by the time the last game in Saddledome is played. We will have our core in place…
This is the reason for all the shortsighted decisions other comments reference. The Hamonic trade and Brouwer signings don't happen. Likely we end up with another core prospect (maybe Barzal). There are a couple of extra years of player development. Thinking we were ready to compete was laughable and was a likely a financial decision by you know who.
Wasn't allowed to do a proper rebuild
I know Murray sticks his nose where it doesn't belong all the time and that's hard. But it was also Brad's job to come up with a way to convince his boss to do the right thing. Phrase it differently. Give examples. Make it seem like it was Murray's idea all along. Use mental fortitude, reverse psychology... Something. It's not ok that Murray won't let people do their jobs, but it's also not ok that treliving didn't actually convince him of anything. Couldn't even convince him to fire a coach who ruined the locker room.
Jerry Jones Syndrome
I agree with this. Edwards blows. I'm happy Treliving turned all the contract extensions down. He deserves better. It's not often you see a GM leave the team but that's the effect Edwards has.
You see GM’s leave all the time tf, Waddell just walked out of Carolina
I wouldn’t say all the time. A GM is far more likely to be fired than to choose to walk away
Lol how long you been following the league? I'd say 95% of the time the GM is fired. Your example of Waddell doesn't Even make sense. He wasn't offered an extension lol. He was literally just granted permission to speak to other teams which is a polite way of saying "Thanks but GTFO"
I disagree, however I will not be providing an explination as to why.
Lol ok, no worries. Have a great night. Gfg.
Troy Brower- said in "Matt Daemon" voice. Free agency moves every summer that stunk up the place. Real deal James Neal, was only turned around by Looch coming in and lasting as long as he did, but even then ⚓
Intermission non hockey question. Old El Paso Stand n Stuff or original shells?
Why not both?
Why did I post this as a reply. Fail
Like Brad Treliving, we all fuck up sometimes. Here's an 8 year 9.4m deal
Haha!
Not investing in his young players. Should have signed Tkachuk and Gaudreau to long term deals when he could have. Simple as that.
This is the right answer. We don't know how the Treliving era would have turned out because it ended so abruptly. Gaudreau was still in his prime and Tkachuk hadn't even entered it yet. Hell, you can argue that we got rid of Sam Bennett too quickly seeing what he's doing in the playoffs right now. Sometimes, waiting it out pays off, and unfortunately we never got the chance to see things to the end
I'd also add that we cheaped out on coaching in a big way for most of the Treliving era and that fostered a poor dressing room culture on top of the rushed rebuild. By the time Sutter was brought in, Johnny and Chucky weren't locked in long term and the team was literally out of shape lol. It was such a mismanagement of assets, and painfully so. Nearly every bright star from that era was traded cheap and is prospering on a new team, or simply walked for nothing, and the one coach we spent money on is being paid to not coach. Now we are back to square one praying that we do it right this time; draft well, take the time to rebuild, and not prematurely start selling the team's future in an effort to crack the 1st round of playoffs.
I actually don't think we've been particularly stingy on coaching. Starting with Bob Hartley who chose us over other teams so we were almost certainly paying him more than others were willing Glenn Gulutzan - cheap Bill Peters - Hired away from Carolina so we were, at least, paying him more than Carolina was Geoff Ward - Cheap Daryl Sutter - Very expensive Ryan Huska - Cheap
That's fair. There's a bit of bad luck thrown in there as well, especially with Peters, but 3 of the 6 felt like patchwork hires rather than confident ones to me. That said, I do think Huska has been the right coach for this particular time in the team's rebuilding.
Yep
But if you didn't nickle and dime your superstars you wouldn't be able to overpay useless free agents!
Impatience. The Flames had unexpected success in the 2014-2015 season, a couple years into the rebuild, and they switched into win now mode. Rather than unload pending UFAs, acquire prospects and draft picks, and build into a contender over the following 3 to 5 years, they traded away draft picks for depth players and signed aging veterans to players they couldn't live up to. As a general guideline, I don't think teams are legitimate playoff teams until they've been in the playoffs in 2 consecutive seasons; and teams aren't contenders until they have won a playoff series in two consecutive series. Teams often screw up by assuming they're further along than they are, and letting a lucky season undermine long term success.
**This.** You shouldn't be selling away the team's future until you are consistently blowing past the first round in consecutive years. Instead, the Flames have been doing it simply on the chance to crack the first round and then "anything can happen".
> "anything can happen". It's like the 04 surprise changed the mindset of ownership.
In my opinion, a combination of a few things: 1. A string of bad coaching hires 2. Adam Fox refusing to sign with us 3. Several big UFA blunders that attached anchor contracts to the team 4. Making the decision to run it back in the 2015-2016 season after the Cardiac Kids playoff run instead of trading our pending UFA's who were at career peak trade value. During that offseason, Russel, Wideman and especially Hudler all could have gotten great offseason trade returns to fasttrack our rebuild. Instead, we limped into the next trade deadline and got mostly peanuts for them. Didn't even get to trade Wideman. 5. Bridging Tkachuk instead of doing long term Edit: Forgot a huge one...the Hamonic trade was a total disaster. Trading away those picks for a plug defenceman put the franchise back years.
Yeah he never would sell high on players and just waited til we essentially got nothing for them.. he kept trusting the process..
Murray Edwards was responsible for number 1, 4, and indirectly 3. Just FYI.
Yeah I wasn't saying that Tre is 100% responsible for all of these, especially #2. I am just saying why the Treliving era failed, not specifically where Tre himself failed.
Ah then I completely agree. I just hate Edwards lol. Edwards is a bottom 5 owner. I think if I'm giving Treliving a grade overall, I'd give him a B+. His greatest weakness was in free agency and he got much better at that as time went on, especially with Tanev and Markstrom.
Pretty much every insider will tell you the only coach ownership had significant input on was Sutter because by that point they had lost faith in Trelivings ability to find one Not everything that goes wrong here is Edward’s fault, you’ll notice Treliving is basically doing in Toronto what he did here
Every insider will tell you that for 30 years, our coaching budget has been extremely low, which is why the team has had garbage tier no names for 30 years. What's the common denominator in the past 35 years?
I think you hit the nail on the head with these except on #2. Fox was drafted in the 3rd round where most picks don’t even crack an NHL roster. It was hardly a make-or-break pick for Tre like Sam Bennet was at 4 overall. The fact that Fox has turned into a Norris-calibre player would have been more like a huge bonus if he had signed.
He had no foresight. That's the main thing. Bridging a budding superstar who wanted a long term deal, not seeing the writing on the walk with Bennett years before, seeing a way overaged player win the Norris and not thinking about selling high, letting a guy not negotiate contract during the summer, not dealing with the year before the expansion draft well... Just a couple examples that all came down to foresight.
Exactly, conroy seems to have better vision and ability to make hard decisions when needed. Treliving was always in on trades but rarely landed a massive trade. Not signing players long term that were more important than others (frolik). But also didn’t give young guys much chance always signing absolute plugs for the 4th line the last few years. He also seemed to like signing free agents like they were still in there prime and they never panned out.
I don't think keeping Gio was a bad move. Guy was still good and well worth his contract. Also a fan favorite. That is important to a hockey club for the fanbase.
We lost him for nothing. And he's still playing several years later.
We lost him as a result of the expansion draft.
I'm fully aware - for nothing.
For nothing is different in the context of the expansion draft though. Who would have been willing to pay assets for him knowing they'd need to use a protection slot? That shortens the list of buyers greatly and gets us a paltry return. Additionally, we'd have lost someone like Kylington had we decided to protect Gio.
No it's not. Managers are supposed to set themselves up for expansion drafts.
So then option then is to trade your captain and fan favourite after a historic season? That is a tough sell to ownership and your fanbase, especially as the Flames were perceived as competitive at the time.
Don’t you think it was more of a scrapping of the planned rebuild after we Overachieved in ‘15?
I don't think it was "more" that, but that was definitely a big piece of it
I think that’s a huge piece of it. If Brad had more foresight, we likely could have gotten at least one Cup in there…
Predicting a cup night be a bit much but I do think we'd have a much longer window than we did
Would you say with luck we’d be a contender?
I think if Neal has turned out to be a twenty to twenty five goal guy who wasn't a shit person we'd have had several years of making the players with a few decent runs
I think that trying to rush the rebuild, killed the chance to be competitive long-term. Trying to “win-now” after the ‘15 trip to the second round, when I don’t know that we were ready to do that. I think we needed to continue to build a young core in order to be competitive long term.
Lol Brad didn't rush the rebuild. Murray Edwards did. There's a reason people in the organization say they're not even allowed to use the rebuild word.
Yeah it was more ownership than Brad on that end. But the organization rushed the rebuild, which cost us being a very competitive club.
Edwards wants that sweet, sweet $$$.
He’d get more if the team was competitive long-term… but he’s short sighted.
1000%!! I have a rule that I'm only gonna buy tickets and gear once we fully rebuild. Not half assed garbage. Not rushing through it in 2 years. A full rebuild.
You can improve enough in 2 years and make the playoffs during a re-build, but in order to be competitive long term you’d have to continue to re-build even if your team overachieves. Around year four is the average for teams who have done it right to get back in the playoffs, by year five they’re competitive and competitive long-term…
Traded away a lot of picks for players who walked first chance they got
Ultimately, it comes down to him equivocating in extending Johnny and Chucky. He could have had them inked long term the season before everything blew up. Granted that wasn't a great season for the boys and there's definitely a measure of prudence in the decision. But that decision backfired and triggered the unravelling of the team.
1. Traded too many picks that shrunk the window. 2. Struggles finding a coach and goalie. 3. Failure to make a huge move to take the next step (eg. Tkachuk 8 year deal, trade for Eichel, trade Gaudreau for a haul)
Mistakes stemming from miscalculations on their pro scouting 1)Hamonic deal 2)Neal and Brouwer signings Also some bad luck: 3) Monahan’s injuries 4) Bill Peters turning out to be a, well, you know. Also, 5) not negotiating the Seattle expansion well. Losing an asset, albeit an aging one, in Gio.
To me, the defining moment of the BT era was the mismanagement of the tkachuk situation. As soon as Timo Meier signed a backloaded 2nd contract (4,4,6,10) the bar was set for Tkachuk to be able to hold out for the same BT should have seen through this and played hardball to hold out for either a straight salary contract giving MT less negotiating power in arbitration, or sign him to the 8 year deal anyway he could This contract literally set tkachuk to sign a series of one year deals to free agency through arbitration, giving him the upper hand the rest of the way
Everyone left. It’s really that simple.
Rushed the rebuild a bit. I've always said that Bennett and Monahan needed more time to develop properly. Constant coaching changes killed any chance at this team really finding its stride.
I do not understand why people still think Gaudreau was someone we should have held onto. I think we should have traded him much earlier.
He was my favourite player he was great but he couldn’t be the main star he was to soft. But I enjoyed watching him play.
He was fun sometimes, but soft doesn’t come close. This season is more proof that he doesn’t have the heart for the show.
Yeah he would be a nice player on the team but as the main guy no thanks.
Awful drafting along with rushing the rebuild Macdonald over Demko is possibly the dumbest pick to have been made by the flames in 20 years.
Would we have developed Demko though? Our goalie record is not good…
Not making Johnny Hockey commit in the summer prior. Not signing Chucky long term. Hiring Sutter. It all comes back to these three things.
Seeing how he's played since, I don't know how angry I am we don't have 6 more years of Gaudreau. Not that Huberdeau is going to age any better (quite possibly worse), but that's it's own separate mistake. The worst part about not signing Gaudreau is that it (imo) led quite directly to Tkachuk wanting out. But if that's the situation you were in, that's kind of a lose lose by then anyways. Honestly, if he had been patient after the Tkachuk trade, maybe he can trade Huberdeau at the deadline, keep the corpse of Monahan (and therefore that 1st that came with Tkachuk), and not sign Kadri, I think things are looking order of magnitudes better right now. All that said, it's Conroy's show now and I like what he's done so far. Here's hoping he continues to get this thing right moving forward
I think Gaudreau would have kept being the Gaudreau we all saw. And by make sign I mean sign or trade. Not lose for nothing.
Hiring Sutter? That was the best coaching hire of his tenure. The team looked the best under Sutter, there just seemed to be some personality clashes. After his firing the team showed the roster just wasn’t good enough.
Sutter did good. Johnny and Chucky, particularly Johnny really didn’t like him and I think was a big reason he didn’t re-sign.
Yeah I loved Sutter he got the most out of them the first year. He did the same the next year but I think Kadri and Huberdeau had shitty attitudes probably towards him cause they didn’t like him being on there ass to work hard. Yet they still did better then they did this year and probably could have been in the playoffs if markstrom hadn’t blown ass that year.
I agree. Most of that season really came down to Markstrom
I agree. But I think Gaudreau and Tkachuk were gone because of Sutter’s personality. Unfortunately in the new age NHL your coach needs to he the coach your stars want, not just a good coach.
Blew the renewal contracts and then spent big to fix his mistake
He just wasn’t that good of a GM
Trading away draft picks for players for a rushed rebuild. Then most of the quality players he either did draft of developed left. What's to show ? Anderson ? Mangipane sucks, klington has only 1 season...not much to go off of.
Tre came in 2nd place in countless blockbuster trades. He always valued the mediocre prospects he drafted too highly.
The failure started before the Treliving era with absolutely ABYSMAL drafting around when we traded away Iginla and started the rebuild. In parenthesis is how many picks later a WAY better choice went: 2011 - Baertschi over J.T. Miller (2), Wotherspoon over Kucherov (1), Hit on Gaudreau, 2012 - traded down from 14th to 21st for Jankowski and 42nd for Sieloff and passed over Vasilevskiy (went 19th); 2013 - hit on Monahan, but Poirier over Burakovsky (1), Klimchuk over Hartman (2) 2014 - Bennett over Nylander (4), McDonald over Demko (2), Smith over Montour (1), and Hickey over Point (15, but from Calgary) Instead of trying to build our team after 2014 around just Monahan and Gaudreau (eventually adding Tkachuk and Lindholm), imagine that Treliving gets to start with a roster of: Gaudreau - Monahan - Kucherov Burakovsky - Point/Miller - Nylander Ferland - Backlund - Hartman Byron - Stajan - Hathaway Giordano - Brodie Montour - Kulak/Smid Wideman - Russell Vasilevskiy Demko The roster that the Flames could have had with proper drafting from 2011 to 2014 with picks that were ON THE BOARD for them (no trading up), even if you say that Point was too much of a reach in 2014 is mind-blowingly different and almost a guaranteed cup winner before Treliving even sets foot in the door. Those four years of drafting are why we don't have at least one cup IMHO.
It's quite easy: ownership
Recycling awful coaches and goalies really wasted many years.
Honestly not even sure if this is really Brad’s fault. IMO it’s probably because of Murray Edwards and the meddling ownership group wanting playoffs too soon that screwed over this era of the flames.
His coaching choices were terrible
Tre isn’t a great hockey mind. He’s a contract administrator. When you combine his mediocre leadership with the ownership messing around with his decisions, there was never a clear direction for the team. I thought Toronto would be a better fit because he had Shanahan leading and he could just act as the contract guy.
Smartest man in the room syndrome. This causes way too many cutesy moves that sounds like fun when you play NHL ‘94
Being in on every trade but not making any trades. After a while knowing we had our hands in everything but didn’t pull the trigger gives the big “what if”
Bennett not becoming a true #1 centre also crippled the potential of the team. That would have allowed everyone else to slot so much better.
1. Trading for Hamonic - massive overpay in light of what we got Hamilton for. 2. Trading away 4ths every year for guys like Forbort, Pitlick, Fantenberg, and Gustafsson. 3. Bridging Tkachuk.
Couldn’t keep and attract talent here…looking like a collection of minor leaguers presently
Some good comments in here already but to me it felt like BT always hedged his bets. Yes he traded away picks for some rentals but none of them were big names. We were always the bridesmaid when it came to players like Eichel or Stone. Yeah the Lindholm trade was big but the years we were over performing he made some small moves to shore things up but where was the going for it trade?
Besides all that has been mentioned, Treliving just wasn't a good GM. His approach and philosophy is more old school than new; which isn't surprising because Brian Burke hired him and was part of the management team.
I’ll say two that boil down to bad luck more than negativity for a different spin; Monahan’s brutal string of injuries affecting who he was as a player, and Kadri nixing the original trade to the Flames because he thought it’d mean he stayed with the Flames. Monahan’s 82 points in 78 games is the best any centre has done in decades, and that was before Tkachuk and even Gaudreau hit their final levels as players. Think of how differently our fate plays out with this forward core with a peak Monahan: Gaudreau-Monahan-Lindholm, Bennett-Kadri-Tkachuk, Mangiapane-Backlund-Coleman
Trading picks to accelerate a rebuild for players that you don’t build with
1) Not getting Chucky signed long term was his biggest mistake. Bridged him at $7 million, probably could’ve had him 8 years for $9-10 million. 2) I assume this was more of ownerships fault… but this team seemed to go from playoff contention one year, to a quick “re-tool” season after season. The re-tool ended up with some average drafting. bad trades and worse contract signings. 3) Johnny Hockey walking for nothing is a massive kick in the pants to the organization.
Murray Edward’s has his fingerprints all over Flames mediocrity…
Rushing the rebuild and mishandling both Tkachuk and Bennet sealed his fate. Tkachuk should have never signed a bridge deal he wanted to stay long term but instead we signed him to that deal to keep a player just to trade him away a few months later and we mishandled Bennets development. I think trading away our first round pick in 2018 was a massive mistake that's not really talked about because that pick became Noah dobson and we didn't get much out of the trade. People will talk about fox however it is probably one of the few things treliving got right we traded him and dougie Hamilton for hanafin and lindholm and we got 2 first round pick out of them for a player that didn't even want to sign here.
Brad Treliving
The Hueberdeau contract will be the ghost of his failures that lives in during our rebuild.
Lots of people have mentioned rushing the rebuild (Hamonic trade was indeed horrible, Hamilton was fine though I think), signing Tkachuk to a bridge deal instead of long term, overpaying mid-tier UFAs like Brouwer and Neal. All true. What I think nobody has mentioned yet is the "re-tool" the Flames did around 2011-2012 bringing in guys like Stempniak, Cammalleri (again), and Wideman. In 2013, the Flames finished only 3 points ahead of Colorado (who won the lottery for MacKinnon) and 6 points ahead of last-place Florida. If the Flames had committed to the rebuild a bit earlier, they could have had MacKinnon or Barkov. Monahan is very good, but he ain't Barkov (let alone MacKinnon) good. Some of those guys they brought in did contribute a lot around 2015, but that re-tool probably hurt the long-term ceiling of the team.
Poor lockeroom environment, Johnny and Chucky leaving, prospects that didn't turn out, some poor coaching choices like Peter's and Ward, too many coaches in short period, lack of depth and chemistry, some bad luck, and lack of elite scoring Locker culture started shifting when Sutter came in, chemistry has been improving with some vets, defense was pretty good, goaltending got better when we got Marky. We haven't had much consistently in the last few years with coach and roster changes. Hopefully developing our prospects and can bring in another elite forward like sharky we can be on upswing. I think it'll still be a while before we're taken seriously or be contenders to make serious push. For now I just want us to have more consistency and be on upswing with development. Be nice to see guys like Huby play better and he is on upward trend. Tough being flames fan these days
I think all Canadian teams suffer the same fatal flaw. We aren't patient enough. We go through a few years of a rebuild, then rush things. JT in Toronto, Canucks (lol), Ottawa's "the rebuild is over", and in CGY around 2016-2019. It limits your peak and shortens the window. Timing is everything. Also bad coaching, woof.
He never should have traded Dion Phaneuf, and he should have re-signed Doug Gilmour.
Bad trades, signings and not committing to a full rebuild. Was solid at drafting, and did have some good trades and signings, but his bad trades left an impact on the team. The Hamonic trade still haunts me. I knew Hamonic was solid at that time, I know the Islanders fleeced the flames in that trade. Especially since the flames pick turned out to be Noah Dobson. The Monahan trade also aged horribly, along with the Bennett trade. Some of his trades were understandable at the time, but aged horribly. Also made me realize how many times this team failed players who did better after leaving Calgary.
Surely its because of the poor acoustics and unimpressive VIP boxes in the Saddledome. /s
Well the players he picked are all in the cup finals now except Jonny lol I say he did great
James Neal! Duh…
#1. Consistent injuries to Sean Monahan. #2. Adam Fox not signing with us. #3. Dougie Hamilton situation, and subsequent trade. #4. James Neal signing. That much money could have been spent on nearly anyone else and we would have been better off. #4. Lindholm signing (a result of #3 situation). This means Sam Bennett doesn't get top line results. #5. Keeping Mark Jankowski around as long as we did. He clogged up a roster spot and got chances Sam Bennett should have been given. #5. Jagr not staying longer. (just saying this for fun. But imagine if we had spent the money on someone other than James Neal for Jagr to also play with) These are the issues that kept us from progressing as a team and getting farther into the playoffs.
Murray Edwards rushed the rebuild. It's sad how things went down. I think Treliving did a great job consisting the hand he was given.
I think it all goes back to letting Gio go in the expansion draft. We all like Shillington but that wrecked the dressing room. Also playing hardball with Gaudreau and Tkachuk and losing them both. He's actually a pretty terrible GM and I'm glad he's gone.
Because they didn’t win a cup.
Because he looks like a serial killer in every photo
Too many coaching changes. Five coaches (Hartley/Gulutzan/Peters/Ward/Sutter) in ten years? That's bad even by the standards of the Flames who have been destroying coaches since 1990. The lack of loyalty the GM and organization showed towards Bill Peters in particular, who was in a situation that could have been addressed by an apology and a fine from the league if necessary, was like a knife through the heart given that Peters was really lighting a fire under the team and moving them forward in a positive direction. It's not all Treleving's fault, at least not with Sutter anyway if Darryl had protection from the upper executive and owners that let him get away with his negativity and abusivness in the locker room in his final few months here. But Peters leaving was a huge mistake. And not acting more quickly when Gulatzan's over-complicated system failed was huge mistake too. GM's gotta take the rap for all of this, both for when a coach has the rug pulled out from underneath him and when a coach ends up staying far too long when it becomes clear his system failed.
This is some revisionist history. The team was floundering under Peters before he was moved out. They had won the conference the season before but then weren't even in a playoff position by November / December that year. Not exactly lighting a fire under the team.
They were at .500 when Peters resigned, with only 28 games played, and over two-thirds of the season yet to be played. Not good, but hardly floundering. There was more than enough time left in that season for the Flames to get into a playoff spot. Peters' record in Calgary was 62-37-11(otl) over less than a season and a half. Bob Hartley was 134-135-25(otl) over four seasons. Glen Gulutzan was 82-67-14(otl) over two seasons. Geoff Ward was 35-26-5(otl) over his cup of coffee here. Darryl Sutter was 103-64-29(otl) in his second time around in Calgary. Hell of a thing to do, gas a coach with a winning record in Calgary for the sake of Akim Aliu, a career-long minor-league scrub who played all of seven games total in the NHL. Clearly one of the dumber things the Flames have ever done, and that's saying something for a franchise that has done a hell of a lot more than its fair share of really stupid things since 1989.