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Brad Treliving’s trade deadline history with Flames points to underwhelming Friday for Maple Leafs
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Photo credit: © Sergei Belski-USA TODAY Sports
Jon Steitzer
Mar 6, 2025, 13:00 ESTUpdated: Mar 6, 2025, 08:16 EST
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Brad Treliving is famously quoted as saying that teams are built in the offseason. His preference towards avoiding a splash at the trade deadline has been well documented and as you’ll see below, his preference both as the Calgary Flames GM, and in his first season as the Toronto Maple Leafs GM is to avoid making a big splash. It’s a nice little philosophy to have but there isn’t a lot of evidence to support his way of thinking, at least recently.
Highly active general managers like Bill Zito and Kelly McCrimmon have made strong cases for pushing all the chips in and going big. Even the Tampa Bay Lightning, when not making a star player addition have done a lot of volume shooting in the middle of the lineup to push good players down into depth roles. Treliving doesn’t have a lot of that in his history and hopefully that is something that changes this week.
Looking at Treliving’s time as the Flames GM you can see that his trading did spike at the trade deadline. Treliving was willing to make moves, the moves just weren’t particularly big:
Before Feb
Feb or later
Total
2014-15
1
2
3
2015-16
1
4
5
2016-17
0
2
2
2017-18
1
1
2
2018-19
1
1
2
2019-20
1
3
4
2020-21
0
2
2
2021-22
0
5
5
2022-23
0
3
3
The Flames weren’t universally buyers or sellers over that time, but you can see the spike in trades came just before or at the trade deadline in most situations and Treliving making a couple of moves seems pretty likely.
The year that gets pointed to as the one Treliving should be trying to emulate is 2021-22, the year he made his two biggest splashes at the deadline, first getting Tyler Toffoli (with term) in the weeks leading up to the deadline, and augmenting the lineup further by adding Calle Jarnkrok (a much more in his prime version) at the deadline as well. There were smaller depth moves as well, but the Toffoli deal is Brad Treliving’s biggest in season movement to date, and pushed the Flames into first place in their division and into the second round of the playoffs.
The second round exit might be looked at as a disappointment given the loss came at the hands of the Oilers but as Toronto fans know too well, getting to the second round is not as easy as it looks. It might be a flaw of a GM only looking at making moves that put you to the top of Stanley Cup contention and rather look at any moves that give you an edge for advancing the round as the primary goal of the trade deadline.
The history of Treliving’s buying years in Calgary are underwhelming beyond 2021-22, and from a list of his in-season movements with the Flames that was compiled last season, expectations for this season need to be kept low:
2014-15 Flames finish with 97 points
It was Brad Treliving’s inaugural season with the Flames having been hired at the end of April. The Flames had 77 points the year before so things definitely seemed like they were going well and that can support Treliving’s reluctance to make any major changes. In January he made a small move to add Drew Shore, but at the trade deadline he had the Flames as sellers dealing Sven Baertschi for a 2nd, and Curtis Glencross for a 2nd and a 3rd. Both of those could be seen as strong asset management moves.
The Flames went on to win the first round of the playoffs before being eliminated in the second round.
2016-17 Flames finish with 94 points
The Flames are back, baby! This time Brad Treliving tried to do some modest additions at the trade deadline moving 3rd and 5th round picks for Michael Stone in February (interesting note both of those picks would yield NHL goaltenders, Stuart Skinner and Akira Schmid). And at the deadline itself, Treliving traded with the Senators for Curtis Lazar and Mike Kostka, giving up a 2nd round pick in the process.
Shockingly, Mike Kostka did not put the Flames over the top and they exited in the first round of the playoffs.
2018-19 Flames finish with 107 points
Oh boy, what a season. The good times of the Bill Peters era will surely last forever, right?
As Leafs fans know all too well, a big regular season doesn’t equal post season success and the Flames were bounced in the first round. Some of that might be attributed to their GM not loading up their successful roster at the trade deadline. Treliving had just two in-season trades.
The first trade was with the Leafs in November, dealing Morgan Klimchuk for Andrew Nielsen and notably killing the “for Bracco, Nielsen, and a 2nd” meme. The other was his deadline deal where he dealt a conditional third (that ended up being a fourth) to the Kings for Oscar Fantenberg. If this doesn’t leave you underwhelmed for what Treliving will do, I guess I admire your optimism.
2019-20 Flames finish 3rd in the Pacific
The first COVID season was a hectic one for the Flames. Bill Peters was fired when evidence of his racism was produced, but Geoff Ward came in and led the team to a strong finish. The Flames would win their qualifying playoff round but lost the first round of the real playoffs.
Brad Treliving was both as a buyer and a seller during one of his busiest seasons. He made four trades dealing Michael Frolik for a 4th but acquiring Derek Forbort for a 4th. He acquired Erik Gustafsson for a 3rd, but dealt Brandon Davidson for future considerations.
The criticism here probably is that there were better times to cash out on Frolik previously and the defensive moves were pretty minimal upgrades. Still, at least there was some volume and an effort to build off the success Ward was having with the roster.
2021-22 Flames finish with 111 points
This is probably what Brad Treliving going for it looks like. The Flames were silent through the early part of the season on trades, as they often are, but made an early splash prior to the trade deadline with the acquisition of Tyler Toffoli for a 1st, 5th, prospect, and Pitlick. The Flames would go on to deal a 2nd, 3rd, and a 7th for Calle Jarnkrok, and a 5th for Ryan Carpenter.
Treliving would also acquire and then trade Michael McNiven for Future Considerations.
Clearly the good times are going to last forever for the Flames. They have goaltending, they have defence, they have Matthew Tkachuk and Johnny Gaudreau leading the way offensively, what could possibly go wrong? Following the second round playoff loss to the Oilers, apparently a lot of things.
Treliving’s trends in his buying years are very conservative, and some of his best moves have often been when he hedged his bets on pending UFAs, cashing out while attempting to build the team. His decision to go big on a player with term rather than a rental is an admirable principle that should be repeated, but there is something about watching the first 2/3rds of a season and doubling down on that lineup rather than improving it that seems like a combination of arrogant and ignorant, and coupled with the flawed logic that you can’t get a good deal on a player at the trade deadline. Considering the looming spike in the salary cap this offseason, this trade deadline might be the last best chance to grab a good player with term or even negotiate with a pending UFA of interest in advance of the offseason to benefit the long term outlook as well as the immediate playoff race.
If there was a season for Treliving to throw his philosophy out the window, it’s probably this one.
Treliving’s history as well as the combination of Ilya Lyubushkin, Joel Edmundson, Cade Webber, and Connor Dewar last year isn’t inspiring and certainly out of touch with the wishes of a rightfully impatient hockey market. While there was a benefit last season to not risking anything above a 3rd-round pick in trade due to Treliving still learning the organization and seeing what he had with his players and coach, this year is different. He knows the players. He has his coach. There is the uncertainty around Mitch Marner’s future with the club, and the clock is ticking. If Treliving can’t go big, the case could be made he’s not the right GM for a club like the Leafs that needs to find a way of getting over the hump.
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