Report: The Flames missed out on Ben Bishop three times

There’s an old saying: if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. When it comes to the Calgary Flames attempting to acquire goaltender Ben Bishop, it appears that trying repeatedly wasn’t a recipe for success.

Per a Twitter report by Kelowna Daily Courier reporter Larry Fisher, the trade that saw Bishop go from Los Angeles to Dallas today was the third time that the Flames failed to acquire the netminder.

According to Fisher’s flurry of tweets, here were the three attempts:

Prior to the 2016 NHL Draft, the Flames had a deal in principle agreed to with the Lightning for Bishop – it’s unclear what would have gone the other way, but presumably it would have involved the sixth overall pick – but the Flames balked at Bishop’s contract ask (reportedly seven years at $7 million per).

Prior to the 2017 trade deadline, Treliving made another run at Bishop and reportedly came to terms with Steve Yzerman with a package similar to the Kings’ offer – L.A. sent Peter Budaj, defensive prospect Erik Cernak, a seventh round pick and a conditional pick that varied based on how far the Kings went. (My speculation: the package probably would have included Chad Johnson, a defensive prospect such as Rasmus Andersson, Adam Fox or Brandon Hickey, and a similar assortment of conditional draft picks.)

But things went off the rails…

This time, it seems that the Flames were close again but that Bishop preferred to go to Dallas. (Sportsnet’s John Shannon tweeted that Bishop had the Flames on his eight-team no-trade list, but presumably he waived it last year for things to get as far as they did.)

If you’re me, the thing that makes you go “Hmmm…” is the notion that Ken King, the club’s CEO and point man on the ever-unfolding arena project, had the ability to approve trades. It’s also unclear, if the report is true, what precisely Brian Burke’s responsibilities are as President of Hockey Operations if King is approving trades.

Suddenly, all the chatter on local radio about “autonomy” factoring into Treliving’s contract negotiations begin to make a lot of sense.

As always, take reports like these with a grain of salt – for disclosure, Larry and I both also write for The Hockey Writers and I’m inclined to believe him given his track record – but it sure seems to fit with the bits and pieces of information that had been floating out there regarding Bishop, the Flames and Treliving over the past year or so.

And given Bishop’s trade to Dallas, expect the rumour mill chatter regarding the Flames and Marc-Andre Fleury to escalate to even crazier levels than we’ve already heard.