/RANT
Flames are constantly shaking things up or dealing with some weird instability. Off the top of my head (hopefully I don't mix up a few years):
2016-2017: Hartley out, Gulutzan in. Medium shake up of roster (New goalies). Dennis Wideman debacle.
2017-2018: HC unchanged. Major shake up of roster (roster and goalies). Gulutzan completely redesigns system to play around a puck moving goalie in Mike Smith (might as well have been a new HC).
2018-2019: Gulutzan out, Peters in. Major shake up of roster (Roster mainly, goalies unchanged). Playoff collapse which seemed to start around the All Star break (Players don't escape criticism, but I think Peters also tried getting cute and messed up his relationship with the team). Treliving extended, as part of his extension negotiations, he specifically demands more autonomy.
2019-2020: Quiet off season, roster essentially unchanged (back up and Neal/Lucic and quiet TDL). HC change mid season as Peters resigns due to racism debacle. Ward thrown in the hot set with no time to prep. Brodie collapses during practice. Reports that Lucic was so unhappy he considered retiring. Flames AGM diagnosed with ALS. Gaudreau's grandpa passes away...
Also we Flames fans have been having much more serious discussions about ownership meddling. There's a ton of rumblings that Treliving had deals in place to acquire Ben Bishop twice and combinations of ownership being unavailable and vetoing made that fall through twice. It is also reported that a trade was in place for Zucker last year TDL that was essentially a fleecing (Frolik + super late 1st) but smoke is showing up that essentially stated that ownership vetoed the deal because they didn't want to pay the cash salary.
Flames ownership also is willing to spend to the cap, doesn't seem to want to pay for management. TBH, I'd rather a situation like Anaheim where they have an internal budget below the cap and allows the GM to do things as he sees fit as long as he's within that internal budget. The opposite seems to be true for the Flames. Treliving can suggest whatever he wants, but ownership seems to always want to have input on exactly how that unfolds. For quite a while, an ownership representative had to review every single transaction and approve it.
This shows up in things like: Refusing to pay a reasonable amount for both coaching and GM. This has manifested in Sutter/Feaster/Burke*/Treliving as GM in the last 14 years and IIRC, all guys were kinda underpaid per league average. Sutter was GM/Coach. Coaching wise, they also refuse to pay. This manifested as D.Sutter dual role/Playfair/Keenan/B.Sutter/Hartley/Gulutzan/Peters/Ward in the last 14 years. Flames fans would desperately love someone respectable like Lavi, Galant, Boudreau etc. but we aren't confident that ownership will be willing to pay them at all (Rumors were that Gulutzan made $700K as a HC and Peters 1.5 Mil).
Ownership also refuses to pay for players not on the NHL roster and they'd rather give away assets rather than pay real cash. This ended up as things like giving away Regehr for a pittance to get rid of Kotalik were the past. Salary retention has not been done by the Flames for... ever. Before Treliving, we hadn't even seen buyout occur for at least up to Sutter as GM (though we always were confused why buyouts over salary retention was allowed by Treliving).
I mean, everyone laughs at Vancouver, Phoenix, Edmonton and Ottawa for having some of the worst management/ownership handicaps out there. But seriously speaking, Calgary is right up there, but somehow the ownership group is very good avoiding criticism. It's like a Scooby Doo meddling kids situation. I think the Calgary situation is on par with the Phoenix situation back when Maloney and Treliving were the GM/AGM in Phoenix. But at least they had the freedom to choose how to do things, even if they knew they were essentially playing money ball with essentially one of the lowest internal budgets in the league. Speaking of moneyball, why the frick did we try and compete in 2015 instead of rebuild that season and aim for CMD/Eichel? What was the reasoning for ownership for that type of mandate??? I loved 2015... but was it the best way to approach the move away from the old core?
I honestly don't know if the Flames can win anything at all unless ownership mandate changes. It to me seems like combinations of too much off ice distractions behind the scenes that most fans will never notice and putting together a really damn nice machine, but cheaping out on the crew to maintain and fine tune it. It's really frustrating.
This is the best Flames roster we have seen since 2015. But I honestly don't feel any confidence in it. I think a bunch of Flames fans aren't too sure about things right now and some of the opinions are either the core is highly flawed and rotten OR the core somehow doesn't have the proper support to play to its full potential and thus is playing well below its potential. We've seen insane fluctuations of what this team/players plays like with the same core but different coaches and different surges and slumps over several years now with the most jarring examples in the play from guys like Gio and Brodie. That's super weird and crazy. I think this is a coaching and mandate situation. It's not the core and the first season under Peters should be an indication it's not a pure talent or players fitting issue. It's outside of that.
