We could compare the NHL teams with the most active,And possibly best, offseasons, we’d look at the Ottawa Senators and Calgary Flames. This is a fact that has been known long before training camp. Does this mean that Senators GM Pierre Dorion and Flames GM Brad Treliving want to be crowned kings in the offseason? No.
Treliving would prefer to launch his offseason trophy into direct sunlight.
“This idea of ‘winning the summer’ is a load of crap, I think,” Treliving said Wednesday afternoon, one day before the Flames start training camp. “You try to win in the winter. The summer really is irrelevant.”
Treliving is wrong in this instance. NHL teams work hard in the winter to make it to the playoffs. They also want to have a long spring and celebration of the Stanley Cup. Considering the moves that were made this summer, with the team’s nucleus either approaching 30 or already past it and the expiring contracts of its GM and head coach — a “non-issue” according to Treliving — the Flames need to thrive in the winter and spring in order to truly consider themselves a success.
With this in mind, Treliving’s own expectations for the coming season seem rather cautious. Or at least the way he’s wording them comes across as such.
“Our goal is to be a playoff team,” Treliving said. “You start every year and you can have all sorts of aspirations. Number one, it’s extremely hard to be a playoff team in this league. Whatever you’ve done and whatever your resume tells you, you still have to go play the games.
