What’s left on Brad Treliving’s to-do list?

Following the signings yesterday of winger Troy Brouwer and back-up goaltender Chad Johnson, Calgary Flames General Manager Brad Treliving held court with local media – both in a press conference and more informal scrum setting afterward – and shared some insights into just what might be left on his summer to-do list.

First of all, yes, he’s aware that Sean Monahan and Johnny Gaudreau require contracts and the team has roughly $14.25 million (counting Sam Bennett’s performance bonuses against the cap) to sign that duo (and perhaps a couple more bodies on the NHL roster).

“We know where we’re at,” stated Treliving, regarding their cap space. “We’ve left significant room. Obviously we’ve got two contracts that have to be dealt with, and they will be. In a cap world, we’ve talked about it before, you make decisions and you’ve got to feed 23 mouths. We think what we’ve done in the last week or so is address some real needs for us.”

When he was on with Pat Steinberg and Ryan Pinder on Sportsnet 960 The Fan, Treliving noted that it was being worked on but nothing was imminent. Given his modus operandi has been working on things with very few information leaks and then suddenly we have a flurry of announcements, I suspect that something will be done within a few weeks – though that’s entirely just guesswork based on how he’s worked thus far.

In other news…

Treliving had no update on Ladislav Smid’s status. The defenseman carries a $3.5 million cap hit for next season and seems to have no obvious fit on this team, and he missed a ton of time over the past two seasons due to upper-body (neck) injuries. Given that Smid wasn’t bought out, that indicates either an unwillingness to spend that dough to get rid of him or an inability to do so (e.g., Smid’s still injured). In a related tidbit, Treliving noted to Steinberg and Pinder that they were still talking with Jakub Nakladal – who served as a Smid replacement last season and was really solid. (He was also planning on “circling back” with Josh Jooris.)

He also indicated that he wanted to address Stockton, as it’ll be a young group. The AHL club has lost captain Aaron Johnson (went to Europe), defender Dustin Stevenson (signed with Dallas), Kenny Agostino (signed with St. Louis), Colton Orr (retired), Turner Elson (signed in Colorado), Derek Grant and Bill Arnold (both currently UFAs). That’s a lot of established AHLers that have left them, so they’ll probably need to get some kind of veteran presence in there.

That said, Treliving noted that he doesn’t expect training camp to be cut-and-dry:

“I like having competition, and I think we have some people that are
pushing for jobs, but I think competition’s a good thing. We don’t
expect to go into camp and just say, ‘We only need to bring in 23 guys
because everything is fixed,’ so there’ll be some competition in camp,” said Treliving.

In other words, I wouldn’t expect him to add too many more players on one-way deals. As Ari noted earlier today, there are a few spots available for non-established players and it sounds like the Flames would like to keep it that way. But with 42 players on the books for next season (and 41 likely to count given Nick Schneider’s deal will probably slide), Treliving probably still has a few additions to make to the organization in the coming weeks.