Is Brad Treliving the Right Choice For the Toronto Maple Leafs?

Team Record

As previously mentioned, Treliving spent nine season as the Flames general manager. Under his guidance, the Flames played 700 games finishing with a record of 362-265-73. That’s a total winning percentage of 51.7%. For context, Dubas had a winning percentage of 58.9% in five years with the Leafs.

Outside of the regular season, the Flames had a mediocre post-season showing under Treliving. The Flames failed to qualify for the playoffs four times, losing in round one three times, and then losing in round two, twice. This left him with an overall record of 16-26.  (nhl.com).

Development issues

Although Treliving has had quite a few draft picks outside of the first round find success in the NHL, there seems to have been an issue with some players finding their game during his tenure.

This could be a combination of factors with blame to go around between the development staff, coaching staff, player, and management. However, it is notable that there were some high draft picks that weren’t able to find their game in Calgary but immediately after leaving find success.

The most notable case of this is Sam Bennett. Playing in 402 games for the club, he scored only 67 goals and 73 assists for 140 points.

Nowhere near the production you would expect from a fourth overall pick. Especially given his resurgence in Florida (104 points in 144 games), Bennett failing to pan out is a major black mark of Treliving’s tenure.In Calgary, Bennett appeared to be a bust. He was traded along with a sixth round pick to the Florida Panthers for Emil Heineman and a second round pick in 2022.

Since joining the Panthers, Bennett has become one of the league’s better powerforwards. In Florida, unlike Calgary, he is being used in a top-six role and is one of their most lethal weapons.

In Calgary, he was misused as a bottom-six forward. It is hard to say who is exactly at fault but he is the exact type of player that a team like Calgary could use, especially with the loss of Matthew Tkachuk, Bennett’s teammate once again. Had Calgary properly utilized Bennett, he could have kept them from making the Blake Coleman or Nazem Kadri signing.

Another notable first rounder that wasn’t properly utilized in Calgary was Juuso Valimaki. Valimaki was the Flames 16th overall pick in 2017.

He played 82 total games as a Flame between 2018 and 2022, and played 35 games with their AHL affiliate the Stockton Heat in 2021-22. He was claimed off of waivers earlier this past season by the Arizona Coyotes in October and proceeded to have a break out campaign. He averaged 18:11 TOI this season  and produced 34 points (via hockeyreference.com).

You could make the argument that Valimaki wasn’t needed on the Flames blueline but losing a valuable young player to waivers shows very poor asset management. He could have been used in a trade to make the team better or used on the roster to again, make a team that missed the playoffs better.