Flames talk: Brad Treliving could very well tinker with roster before Friday’s NHL trade deadline

Steve Macfarlane: The Boston Bruins are a good team to cheer for right now if you're a fan. They're phenomenal. 

Craig Ellingson: I didn't expect that (a 46-8-5 record heading into their game against the Flames in Calgary) from them this season. How do you explain the Bruins?

SM: I don't know. Everyone keeps mentioning this whole Last Dance mentality or whatever.

CE: Are we really comparing Patrice Bergeron and Brad Marchand to Michael Jordan?

SM: Ha ha ha, Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen.

CE: This is going into the transcript of our talk, by the way,

SM: We might have to, I don't know. Yeah, why not?

Busy day of NHL trades

CE: Because when it comes to talking about the Calgary Flames, I don't think a lot really changes because heading into the trade deadline, there's not going to be anybody left by Friday to trade because Tuesday has seen a ton of trading already. I don't even know what's left.

SM: It was a busy day. I kept refreshing and going 'Wait, another trade?' and 'How come the Toronto Maple Leafs are in every trade?'

CE: Yeah, they've done like half a dozen trades, right?

SM: Ha ha, that's the thing, though, right? They've got to beat the Tampa Bay Lightning first, but if they're looking to try to beat the Bruins and you think you have a chance, you've got to do whatever it takes to try to get there. So you add players.

CE: And here in Alberta, when it comes to the Edmonton Oilers, the Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl window is open. So there's that, but in Toronto, it's even more pressing because the Auston Matthews window is wide open right now along with Mitch Marner and company. So they have to take a big swing.

SM: Yes, you have to, and you just don't know. Everyone thinks that Matthews is going to sign in Toronto again, but there is no guarantee. There's no loyalty anymore on either side.

Flames' pending UFAs possible trade bait

CE: Exactly. Just like we've been saying and everybody's been saying all along, we can't really see — including Treliving himself — the Flames making a trade considering the position they're in and considering what all the other teams have been doing and taking all the rentals and all the other pieces away anyway.

SM: I really can't see them doing anything other than maybe adding some futures by getting rid of anyone who other teams find desirable out of their fourth line because they're UFAs. 

Milan Lucic is a UFA, Trevor Lewis is a UFA, so is Brett Ritchie. Well, no one's going to want Brett Ritchie, let's be honest, but Lucic and Lewis, maybe. They're Cup winners. 

Lucic adds the scrappiness that he's shown more lately than earlier in the season. It's funny, actually, because I saw today something out of Boston, and I don't know who the writer was, but somebody was talking about how they still have this love affair with Lucic. (Team president) Cam Neely came out today and said the Bruins can still tinker before the deadline. 

I don't know, if they beat the Flames tonight, would the Bruins maybe say 'hey, we showed you that you can't compete, maybe you want to send us Lucic for the playoffs and retain some money in the process.'

CE: Maybe that happens right after the game. 'Hey Looch, are you packed? The bus is right here.'

SM: I feel like that happened with Mike Cammalleri at some point. 'No, we're just going to leave you here. You're not coming home.'

Peddling defence a longshot but …

CE: That totally did happen to Cammalleri (12 years ago.) Say, would the Flames entertain dealing any, say … I mean, Lucic and Lewis, I don't know what kind of return you could expect. Would the Flames dare to touch their defence at all? Somebody off the defence for something.

SM: I wouldn't be surprised, but I think it depends on whether Treliving is looking at this as his team next year or not. I think his contract kind of plays into it, too, because he's, for lack of a better term, a lame duck GM who may or may not have been offered something or may just want to walk away at the end of the year. 

So does he want to start tinkering with the future too much or does he want to just see what he can do for this season and see what happens and go from there? If anyone is — we've talked about this before — I think if anyone on that roster on the defensive side is in play, I would say it would be Noah Hanifin. Only because Rasmus Andersson's going nowhere, and I feel like they've invested in MacKenzie Weegar, so it doesn't really make a whole lot of sense to send him packing for now.

He's signed very long term and may be hard to trade to anyone other than the Ottawa Senators at that number based on his numbers this year. 

But Hanifin is one of those guys who's UFA I believe after the end of next season, and he maybe opens up a little bit more in salary to mess with the forwards, so if there was one guy on the back end that I could see moving, it would be Hanifin. It would have to be a pretty stellar deal, though, for Treliving to pull the trigger on something like that right now. I really just see him standing pat. 

Everyone kind of thinks they've played underneath their potential all season, and if they get to the playoffs, if they're dangerous in the playoffs, I wouldn't necessarily want to play them in the first round if they did get in, but their goaltending has been the biggest problem. So unless that changes down the stretch, they're not a team I would take too seriously in the playoffs either.