Bill Peters, Travis Hamonic and trade talk on TSN’s Insider Trading
By Ryan Pike
4 years agoAs you can expect, the Calgary Flames are the talk of the National Hockey League right now. Not for great reasons, though, but because of their recent struggles. The Flames were front and center on TSN’s Insider Trading earlier this week, with several news items popping up.
Host James Duthie opened by discussing Toronto’s struggles and linking Mike Babcock’s tenuous situation with Flames head coach Bill Peters’. He did add, though, that he didn’t think Peters is in as dire a situation as Babcock.
From there, the insiders chimed in.
Bob McKenzie:
There’s no question right now the Calgary Flames are having a major offensive power outage that would be helped by their best players scoring more goals. And while there may be some grumbling out there about the players with Billy Peters as their head coach, at this point in time there’s no reason to believe whatsoever that a coaching change, or any discussion of changing change, or anything about Peters’ future is even in the equation for the Calgary Flames. General manager Brad Treliving is trying to shake things up with a trade but there’s nothing imminent on that front.
For context, Treliving relieved Glen Gulutzan of his duties after the 2017-18 season because (a) the team struggled under him that season and (b) Peters became available and seemed to be a perfect fit for the Flames. It’s really unlikely that Treliving would axe two coaches within an 18 month period without sprucing up his own resume.
Darren Dreger:
There’s ongoing speculation about the availability of certain players like Jankowski, Kylington, Mike Frolik’s name has been out there for a long time. But Brad Treliving continues to work at the future of the Flames operation as well and I’m looking specifically at Travis Hamonic on the Flames blueline. Now, they met prior to the start of the regular season. I don’t think that the player liked the way the conversation went. I know that Treliving has met recently with Kevin Epp of Titan Sports, who represents Travis Hamonic. There’s no rush from the player perspective here, so if we’re talking about this in the new year creeping closer to the trade deadline that’s an option. Or if the Flames are a playoff team, maybe they use Hamonic to march as deep as they can.
For context: Jankowski was part of the nixed Flames/Leafs trade that would’ve made Nazem Kadri a Flame. Frolik was all-but-traded to the Minnesota Wild prior to the trade deadline and the Flames were reportedly close to a swap with New Jersey at the NHL Draft as well. Kylington has been the odd man out among the Flames young defenders, in that on the left side the Flames already have Noah Hanifin and Juuso Valimaki in the system and so unless he becomes a TJ Brodie-esque off-side defender it’s unlikely he’ll get a ton of minutes on the NHL roster.
As for Hamonic? He’s on a team-friendly deal right now and he’s heading into unrestricted free agency potentially. Given the wacky dollar figures handed out to players in similar situations in recent summers, it makes a ton of sense for him to either head to market or try to press the Flames for something in that neighbourhood. And you can understand the Flames’ apparent hesitancy to throw big dollars at him at this point, particularly with Rasmus Andersson and Andrew Mangiapane needing new deals and the salary cap unlikely to creep up by a ton.
If nothing else, folks, Treliving is working the phones and trying to make things happen to shake up the team. We’ll see if he’s successful.
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