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Flames Reportedly Blocking Treliving from NHL Interviews

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According to the man tasked with replacing him, former Calgary Flames general manager Brad Treliving “needed a break.”

Turns out, it was probably more of an it’s not me, it’s you situation.

And now, the Calgary Flames are reportedly blocking Treliving from exploring new NHL opportunities — at least until his current contract expires on June 30.

Now, before we start smearing the Calgary Sports and Entertainment Corporation ownership because the optics initially appear to be spiteful, let’s consider that this may be more of a business decision than a personal one.

Remember, current president of hockey ops and interim GM is a close friend.

It’s well within the Calgary Flames franchise’s right to say no to teams that may be looking to interview Treliving for one of the many front-office openings across the league right now — Pittsburgh among them.

Although they “mutually agreed to part ways” with Treliving’s contract ending at the end of next month, the then-GM informed his bosses after the season that he had no intention of coming back next year. He got the walkout treatment, as any company tends to do when the next job is going to be with a competitor.

We all know the Calgary Flames franchise is currently without both a GM and head coach at least in part because of the serious philosophic differences that existed with Treliving and Darryl Sutter. The team clearly now sees things the way Treliving did months ago when he reportedly asked for Sutter’s dismissal himself. But by the time the team found out through exit interviews that many important players wanted the bench boss gone, too, it was too late to salvage the Treliving relationship.

His tenure in Calgary over nearly a decade wasn’t perfect, but one area he fared well in was the NHL Entry Draft. He’s managed to re-stock the prospect cupboards fairly well with the likes of Connor Zary, Jakob Pelletier, Matt Coronato, Jeremie Poirier and Dustin Wolf looking like solid future NHL pieces. Ramus Andersson, Andrew Mangiapane and Oliver Kylington were value picks proving to be important pieces for the current core.

And former top-end talents Sam Bennett and Matthew Tkachuk are both making waves in the playoffs — albeit with the Florida Panthers.

So the Flames have decided that Treliving’s next job will have to wait until after the draft.

It’s not personal. It’s business. Competitive advantage over optics. They’re not the first team to stick to that timeline. The Flames definitely won’t be the last.

We’ll find out in another six weeks or so how long Treliving really wanted that break to last.