The Calgary Flames wrap up the first half of their 2017/2018 NHL campaign on New Year’s Eve in a tilt against the Chicago Blackhawks at the Scotiabank Saddledome. Global’s Lisa MacGregor sat town with Flames general manager Brad Treliving to reflect on the season that was, discuss the team’s hopes for 2018 and even touch on the arena debate going on in the city of Calgary.
Q: At the start of the season, you talked about setting standards, not expectations. Now that we’re coming to the end of 2017, how have the Flames met your standards judging from where they sit right now?
A: I’d probably say it’s been an up and down year so far. The good news is, relatively speaking, we’re in a decent spot in the standings. You’d always like to be better but we’re there and don’t think we’ve played our best hockey yet. We’re trending up, we’ve done some good things. Doing them consistently has probably been the challenge for us this year but you see that throughout the league. It’s a tight league right now. Parity is sort of a motherhood saying but parity has never been better. But I’d like to see us hitting that standard that we talk about on a more consistent basis. But all things considered, we’ll take the position we’re in and hopefully continue to build here going into the New Year.
Q: We’ve seen a lot of highs and lows on the ice for the Flames. But generally do you think they have the pieces right now to be Stanley Cup contenders or to at least go deep in the playoffs?
A: You’re always trying to make your team better. I do like our team. I think when you look at the roster, I think there’s some areas that have real strength. I like our goaltending, our defence – going into the year was really going to be a strength of ours and I think we’re seeing it. It’s sort of been up and down a little bit to be quite honest. In recent days it’s stabilized. I’d like to see how we maybe can tweak things up front. But as far as going deep, the goal here is to get in. In today’s NHL, it’s a difficult process to get into the playoffs. Once you’re there, you give yourself a chance to worry about the next step. But our goal here over the next 50 plus games is to get above that line, get into the playoffs and take it from there.
Q: Jaromir Jagr. There’s no denying the fans absolutely love this guy. But he’s missed a few games as of late. Are you getting the value that you wanted out of him or are you still waiting for this?
A: We talked about it at the time of the signing, it’s going to be a little bit of an unknown for a guy who’s been around as long as he has, just because of the situation. He’s missed training camp. As good of a player as he is, everything that he’s done in the league, he’s still 45 years old. And when you’ve missed training camp at that age, sometimes there’s challenges that go with it. This is probably the first year in his career, in most recent times, that he’s battled some injuries. I think Jaromir’s brought a lot to our team when he’s been healthy.
Q: Matthew Tkachuk is having one heck of a year. But how do you manage and hone the skills of a gritty old-school-style player like him without losing his spark and natural instinct?
A: You don’t want to lose the stuff that happens between the whistles. His game is unique, as you said. There’s not many players that play the way he does, especially at his age. So there’s nothing that we want to pull back or reign in, in terms of his game, and you’ve got to be clear with a young guy like that. What we do want to get rid of is the unnecessary and the needless stuff, the stuff that happens after the whistle. The stuff that happens off the ice. In terms of getting involved with players off the ice. The two incidents that we saw are incidents that we don’t need. You love the enthusiasm, so you’ve got to be careful with how you deal with it. He’s in your bunker when it’s time to go to the heavy lifting games. I love this kid and he’s going to be a big part of the future of this franchise. No different than when you deal with your kids sometimes, you love them but say there’s certain things we’ve got to clip here. That’s the same with Matthew. But under no circumstances do we want his game to change.
Q: You’re a hockey man through and through. But the NHL is a business. From your side of the arena drama, if a deal doesn’t get done in a year or a few years that pleases the Calgary Sports and Entertainment Corporation, what are the chances that the Flames move to another city?
A: That’s a question for others in our organization. From the hockey side, we’re focused on how do we get better every day here. Obviously it’s an important story. As we sit here right now there is no negotiations but as far as my job and the areas that I’m responsible for, we’re focused on how do we get this team better and how do we continue to collect points and hopefully give ourselves a chance to compete in the playoffs, and hopefully the rest of that stuff will get taken care of. Obviously, we love this city. As far as distractions – and we talked about it at the beginning of the year – you deal with a lot of things as a player and this isn’t a distraction for us at all. Our focus is we’ve got enough to worry about in terms of competition in the league. So our guys are dialed in on that… the rest of that stuff we’ll let play out and hopefully it comes to a good conclusion. But our energy and focus is where it needs to be and that’s on the ice.
READ MORE: Flames no longer looking for new arena in Calgary: Ken King
Q: You’re in your fourth season with the Flames organization. How is this year different from past years that you’ve been GM?
A: The biggest difference for us is you see the growth in our team. When I came here we were drafting fourth overall, we were just coming out of our sixth or seventh or eighth year in a row out of the playoffs. This year we came in… we talked about all the standards we want to have and I think that’s just the growth of the franchise and the growth of the team. So that’s probably the biggest difference here, we think we’ve got a good team. We’re still continuing to grow this thing, I think our best days are ahead of us. Our expectations for where this team can go to is probably greater than where it was three years ago and that’s how it should be.
READ MORE: New Calgary arena among debate points in council’s Downtown Economic Summit report
A: The public persona of Brian is this gruff and rough and tumble guy, which he is, but away from that spotlight he’s a gentle man. He’s a caring individual. A lot of the stuff he does, nobody sees or even hears about whether it be for charitable causes or those less fortunate or just being a good friend. So he’s given me a lot of advice, probably the most important is sticking to your guns especially coming to a Canadian market, it’s different than where I was prior to, so you get lots of opinions and lots of advice. Stick to your guns, stick to your plan, block out the noise and continue down the path that you’ve chosen. He’s always quick with information and advice and ideas – that’s probably the biggest that I’ve taken from him.
Comments