I’m gonna step up to bat for Tre here:
It’s not like Treliving hasn’t tried to make the team better in the past year. Multiple trades ( that we even know of )have fallen through for various reasons:
-Zucker deal fell through because of ownership allegedly refusing to retain salary or some other bullshit penny pinching reason.
-Kadri & Brown deal fell through because Kadri had us on his NTC, I think I heard that he said he would’ve waived had he known they were going to trade him to Colorado afterwards.
- We were runners up in the Hall deal, according to Lebrun Tre knew this team didn’t have what it took to get things done, and if we look at the Zucker deal falling apart last trade deadline, he’s known this for about a year now.
Not to mention we were in on Mark Stone heavily till the end, but cap and the fact we would have to let go of Vali made that fall through. Our cap situation last summer was tight, and we had to resign Tkachuk, Bennett, Rittich and Mangiapane all to raises ( not sure about Bennett tbh). So where does that leave Tre? With his hands tied and f*** all he could do.
I think he’s had a lot of bad luck the last year , one of those deals works out and we may be looking at a much different flames team right now. It’s apparent to everyone this core is fractured and changes need to be made at some point. It just seems like it’s very hard to maneuver in the cap world. So I still trust Treliving at the wheel for now, if we’re still talking first round playoff exits and this team crumbling under pressure in summer 2022 then send Tre packing by all means.
He’s bought enough good will from me with the restocking of our prospect pool, rebuilding of our AHL system, hits in the draft and trades, and excellent RFA resignings. He’s definitely made some f*** ups with the GG hiring and Neal/Brouwer/Lucic deals...but no GM is without his warts. I’d still take Tre over about 80% of the GMs in the league right now.