Reserve list changes under Brad Treliving
By Ryan Pike
7 years agoAs happens sometimes, a comment from Brad Treliving’s media availability made me think over the weekend. When talking about goaltending, Treliving had this gem of a comment on Friday:
Building a team isn’t just the 23 you see here, it’s
building your reserve list. Eighteen months ago when I came in here, I
believe that you built your teams on the blueline and in goal and from
there and up center ice, so when you look at where our defense reserve
list was 18 months ago to where it is today, where our goaltender
reserve list was 18 months ago from today, we drafted and will continue
to draft a bunch of centers every year, that’s the strength of where
teams are built. So it’s not by accident we’ve added some bodies, now
it’s up to those guys to continue to develop and strengthen. But I think
we’ve got some guys that have a real chance.
That begs the question somewhat: how has the Flames’ reserve list – the players under contract and their unsigned draft picks – been altered since Treliving arrived in late April 2015?
(For clarification’s sake: the focus here is on “net” migration in and out of the Flames system. Jonas Hiller was brought in and then left, canceling him out, and others in similar situations are also not listed.)
GOALIES
| IN | OUT |
| Brian Elliott | Joey MacDonald |
| Chad Johnson | Joni Ortio |
| Mason McDonald | Karri Ramo |
| Tyler Parsons | Olivier Roy |
| David Rittich | |
| Nick Schneider |
When Treliving arrived, goaltending was in a rough, rough state. As you can see, he’s brought in a lot of goalies from different areas. Jon Gillies has been retained, but otherwise Treliving has moved six bodies in and four bodies out (excluding Jonas Hiller and Niklas Backstrom, who went both ways).
Interesting quirk: Treliving brought in one goalie each from the the Czech Extraliga (Rittich), Q (McDonald), OHL (Parsons) and WHL (Schneider), yet has zero Finnish goalies.
DEFENSEMEN
| IN | OUT |
| Rasmus Andersson | Chris Breen |
| Riley Bruce | Chris Butler |
| Deryk Engelland | Mark Cundari |
| Stepan Falkovsky | James Martin |
| Adam Fox | Shane O’Brien |
| Dougie Hamilton | John Ramage |
| Brandon Hickey | Eric Roy |
| Jyrki Jokipakka | Kris Russell |
| Kenney Morrison | Patrick Sieloff |
| Adam Ollas-Mattsson | Derek Smith |
Here’s a simple metric for you: right shots brought in include Andersson, Bruce, Engelland, Falkovsky, Fox, Hamilton and Morrison. Right shots that left include Ramage (and nobody else). Probably given how huge special teams are – and the importance of having right-shot power-play options – Treliving’s made getting righties a focus since he’s arrived.
In terms of NHL players, I think the common feeling is Hamilton is an upgrade on Russell and Engelland is an upgrade on Butler, so there’s that. The remainder of the changes have been fringe guys replaced by younger guys that haven’t been proven to be NHLers or fringe guys yet.
FORWARDS
| IN | OUT |
| Sam Bennett | Kenny Agostino |
| Brandon Bollig | Bill Arnold |
| Troy Brouwer | Sven Baertschi |
| Austin Carroll | Paul Byron |
| Alex Chiasson | Mike Cammalleri |
| Dillon Dube | Joe Colborne |
| Michael Frolik | David Eddy |
| Freddie Hamilton | Turner Elson |
| Garnet Hathaway | T.J. Galiardi |
| Pavel Karnaukhov | Curtis Glencross |
| Linus Lindstrom | Coda Gordon |
| Andrew Mangiapane | Markus Granlund |
| Mitchell Mattson | Ben Hanowski |
| Matthew Phillips | Blair Jones |
| Brett Pollock | David Jones |
| Daniel Pribyl | Josh Jooris |
| Hunter Shinkaruk | Corban Knight |
| Hunter Smith | Brian McGrattan |
| Matthew Tkachuk | Max Reinhart |
| Eetu Tuulola | Ben Street |
| Bryce van Brabant | |
| Kevin Westgarth |
The Flames have shipped out seven centers and brought in nine of them during Treliving’s tenure. You can make an argument that they’ve been trending younger and/or more skilled, with names like Bennett, Dube, Pollock, Phillips and Shinkaruk replacing Arnold, Granlund, Reinhart and Street. (Another general trend: good AHLers being supplanted with potential NHLers.)
Another trend: as with blueliners, we’ve seen a lot of right-shots brought in – though it’s been more of a general churn rather than a lefties-replaced-by-righties trend. Eight righties have departed, replaced with nine new righties. Unlike with the center refresh, there isn’t a large-scale trend; the right shots that have left have generally been replaced by players of similar quality.
SUM IT UP
Overall, Treliving has added as many players to the reserve list as he’s removed from it since he arrived. The general trend has been towards more right-handed shots and forwards with NHL potential (rather than AHL potential).
In terms of (fairly) established NHLers, they added Brian Elliott, Chad Johnson, Deryk Engelland, Dougie Hamilton, Jyrki Jokipakka, Sam Bennett, Troy Brouwer, Alex Chiasson, Brandon Bollig and Michael Frolik at the expense of Joey MacDonald, Karri Ramo, Chris Butler, Kris Russell, Paul Byron, Mike Cammalleri, Joe Colborne, David Jones, Josh Jooris and Kevin Westgarth. (The difference in the two groups has been made up by home-grown prospects filling organizational spots.) (Also, Jooris isn’t necessarily gone just yet.)
Has Treliving definitively upgraded the Flames’ reserve list? Or is it more a series of subtle tweaks? Sound off in the comments.
Recent articles from Ryan Pike
