Revisiting Poor Moves Brad Treliving Made As Flames GM

Initially hired in 2014, Brad Treliving’s tenure as the Calgary Flames’ GM can be described in one word: mediocre. The team only made it past the second round twice and often would suffer from inconsistency between making and missing the playoffs. It’s safe to say that a change was needed after a disastrous 2022-2023 campaign which saw Treliving mutually part ways with the organization. Between unwise trades and free agency signings that backfired, there are a handful of moves that can be studied on why the Flames are where they are today.

I have a passion for analyzing a GM’s past transactions to understand the factors behind their mistakes. In this article, we’ll explore some of the moves made by Treliving during his tenure in Calgary that ultimately didn’t pan out.

1. The Travis Hamonic Trade

During the 2017 offseason, the Flames wanted to add to their defence core. Travis Hamonic was viewed as a viable top-four, shutdown defenseman when he was playing for the New York Islanders. During the 2016-17 season, Hamonic only played 49 games scoring three goals and 14 points, and was a -21. Still, that didn’t effect the Flames’ interest in him as on June 24th, 2017, they traded a 2018 first-round pick along with two second-round picks for the Islanders defender and a conditional fourth-round pick.

Once Hamonic arrived in Calgary, he wasn’t anything special and definitely was not worth all those assets. Additionally, the Flames would end up missing the playoffs in 2018 and the Islanders would receive their first-round draft selection at 12th overall. What made it even worse was the fact that New York would use that pick to select defenseman Noah Dobson.

It took a bit for Dobson to adjust to the NHL, but eventually, he became a regular on New York’s blueline. This past season, Dobson had a career year as he scored 10 goals and 70 points in 79 games. He developed into a notable top-four offensive defenseman who became the face of the Islanders’ defense. As for Hamonic, he ended up spending three seasons on the Flames before signing in Vancouver as a free agent to now being a member of the Ottawa Senators in a reduced role. The trade really made no sense looking back at it and Calgary would’ve probably been able to get a better player for the assets they gave up.

2. Poor Free Agency Signings

Treliving has made many good signings in Calgary, such as for Chris Tanev and Jacob Markstrom, but he’s had his share of poor ones too.

Starting with the 2016 offseason when Treliving signed 31-year-old Troy Brouwer to a four-year, $18 million deal. Brouwer was coming off a year with the St. Louis Blues where he scored 18 goals and 39 points. Frankly, the Flames were hoping Brouwer would be able to show a bit more offensive skill throughout his deal as he’d done so in past seasons. The deal would end up not aging well as Brouwer didn’t even hit the 20-goal mark in any of his years in Calgary and would end up being bought out during the 2018 offseason.

Then there’s James Neal. On July 2nd, 2018, the Flames signed Neal to a five-year, $28.75 million deal. Neal was known as a goal scorer throughout his entire career as he’s hit 20-plus goals in 10 of his 14 seasons. Neal was coming off a good year with the Vegas Golden Knights, scoring 25 goals and 44 points. The expectation was that the Flames were getting a top-six sniper to pair alongside their stars.

This aged terribly as Neal had a miserable first year in Calgary. He would end up only scoring seven goals and 19 points in 63 games, making him a target of fan backlash. He would only last one season in Calgary before he was shipped to Edmonton in exchange for Milan Lucic in 2019.

The issue with Treliving is that he has a habit of giving too much term. Many times it’s the number of years on a contract that can be the issue and not necessarily the value, and these signings are highlighted as major blunders.

3. The Flames And Their Coaching Carousel

During Treliving’s tenure, the Flames cycled through five head coaches in eight years. Although not all of these situations were his doing, it created a notably inconsistent environment.

The Flames dismissed coach Bob Hartley after failing to make the playoffs in 2016, bringing in Glen Gulutzan as his replacement. In 2018, the team parted ways with Gulutzan and hired Bill Peters to take over as head coach. Peters would actually find some success in Calgary until he resigned in 2019 due to past allegations of racism. The Flames would hire Geoff Ward as his replacement, only to be fired in 2021. Flames ownership would then reunite with a familiar face as they hired Darryl Sutter as the team’s next head coach also in 2021.

Sutter would find success as the Flames dominated during the 2021-2022 regular season and the team won in the first round against the Dallas Stars. After that season though, things started to fall apart. Reports came out during the 2022-2023 season that Treliving and Sutter didn’t exactly see eye-to-eye. There was also rumors about players not wanting to play for Sutter and the locker room becoming toxic. This led to the eventual parting of ways from Treliving and Sutter also being fired.

For some reason, Treliving was never able to find a permanent coach for the team. While Sutter wasn’t his hire, their disagreements caused major problems for the team. It seemed like throughout Treliving’s tenure in Calgary, the revolving door for coaches kept going and wasn’t going to stop.

4. Flames Not Signing Matthew Tkachuk Long-Term

On September 25, 2019, the Flames signed Matthew Tkachuk to a three-year, $21 million deal as an RFA. Getting Tkachuk signed wasn’t the issue, but the fact that the deal was short-term.

One reason why the team opted to sign Tkachuk for three years was to save cap space. The Flames at the time really wanted to keep players such as Michael Frolik. Frolik was in the middle of a five-year, $21.5 million contract and was a decent veteran player for the Flames. However, not signing your emerging star player long-term because you wanted to keep a veteran around isn’t exactly the best idea. The Flames stated that “keeping the team together” was important to them and influenced why Tkachuk’s contract was the way it was.

A few months later, in January 2020, the Flames traded Frolik to the Buffalo Sabres for a fourth-round pick. This move was a significant example of mismanagement that would come back to haunt the team in 2022.

5. The 2022 Offseason

This one needs some context, but during the 2022 offseason, the Flames looked like they made an epic comeback. Fresh off from losing Johnny Gaudreau via free agency, Tkachuk let the team know that he wasn’t going to sign long-term and requested a trade. This shocked many Flames fans as they were just processing that Gaudreau was no longer going to be on the team.

Treliving was quite upset by the narrative that “nobody wanted to play in Calgary” and was working the phones. He ended up trading Tkachuk to the Florida Panthers in one of the biggest trades in NHL history. The Flames received Jonathan Huberdeau, Mackenzie Weegar, Cole Schwindt, and a 2025 first-round pick. The team would then extend Jonathan Huberdeau to a massive eight-year, $84 million contract, and would end up signing Weegar to an extension as well.

On August 18, 2022, the Flames then added free agent Nazem Kadri on a seven-year, $49 million contract. For the team to have signed him, they traded Sean Monahan to the Montreal Canadiens along with a conditional 2025 first-round pick for future considerations.

While fans admired Treliving’s moves at the time, they ended up severely backfiring. Huberdeau has not played up to his contract and the Flames are now in a rebuild. The Monahan cap dump also hurts as the Flames now need to in the finish bottom-10 next season in order to secure their own pick. Treliving’s moves were based on the market’s emotions from losing Tkachuk and Gaudreau, and it’s a situation that could’ve been avoided. The Flames should’ve accepted their fate and started the rebuild in 2022 instead of trying to stay in the race.

Next: Only One Team Has Called the Blue Jackets About a Patrik Laine Trade