Flames to stand pat, GM Brad Treliving blames self for team's struggles

Stan Temming
Despite the rough patch the Calgary Flames are going through, general manager Brad Treliving won't be making any immediate changes. (Getty Images)
Despite the rough patch the Calgary Flames are going through, general manager Brad Treliving won't be making any immediate changes. (Getty Images)

While the Calgary Flames’ logo — with its fire and whatnot — appears quite hot, the team wearing the jerseys it’s stitched on has been anything but as of late.

After a 5-0 thrashing at the hands of the St. Louis Blues on Thursday night, Calgary is now 0-5-1 in their last six games. During that stretch, they’ve been shutout three times and outscored 23-5. In fact, according to Sportsnet Stats, the Flames set a new franchise record against the Blues when the cumulative amount of time that they hadn’t held a lead for stretched to 348 minutes and 42 seconds.

Despite their issues over the last two weeks, don’t expect any major changes within the organization.

“The coaches aren’t going anywhere,” said Brad Treliving — the team’s general manager — on Friday, according to Postmedia’s Wes Gilbertson. “Our top players aren’t going anywhere.”

With a record of 10-12-3, the Flames currently sit three points out of a playoff spot in the Western Conference.

In situations like these, it can be pretty easy to blame the coaching staff and/or the players. It was an identical stretch of 0-5-1 that ultimately cost Mike Babcock his head coaching job with the Toronto Maple Leafs on Wednesday. (Interestingly enough, both teams picked up their last win before their respective losing streaks on Nov. 7).

Treliving isn’t pointing any fingers, though. He appears to be more than willing to take the heat (pun intended).

“We know we’re not playing well. We don’t need to be told,” Treliving said, according to Gilbertson. “Let’s deal with it as a group. Let’s deal with it individually. It starts with the manager. The manager has been horse-s**t. He has to get going... Let’s start with the manager first and we can go from there.”

While the 50-year-old has experienced plenty of ups and downs since being named the team’s general manager in April of 2014, Thursday night in St. Louis may have been a new (literal) low.

There’s little doubt that the offence for Treliving’s team hasn’t been its high-flying self as of late. According to TSN’s Darren Dreger, Calgary’s mode of transportation to get out of St. Louis on Thursday (temporarily) wasn’t either.

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