Nazem Kadri in, Sean Monaghan out. The moves have many anointing Treliving as next year’s GM of the year, with one of the most ardent going so far as to tip him to win the Hart. The most recent magic trick performed by the NHL’s most prolific twirl came on his 53rd birthday while he was in Texas, taking his daughter to school. “I was on the s— list today, I pretended to be on the phone all day while a lot of heavy stuff was going on,” grinned the man who might as well top all GMs in the humor department. “It was a long day today.” Make it five busy weeks, starting with Johnny Gaudreau’s decision to abort contract talks at the 11th hour on July 12, starting a chain of trades and signings that have made Treliving the NHL’s centerpiece this summer. While Rome seemed to be crumbling around him, it managed to snag and sign a superstar like Jonathan Huberdeau, followed by Thursday’s seven-year, $49 million deal with Kadri to give the Flames the depth they’ve craved for decades. . Asked why it took five weeks for one of Calgary’s top unrestricted free agents to finally sign, Treliving cited the cap constraint as a key obstacle. “It’s a bit like fishing – sometimes you think you’ve got it on the hook and then it slips away a bit. Then you’ll see if you can get it back,” laughed Treliving, who dreams of having time to fly from a boat. “Early on, I didn’t really think … well, it was an interesting time because at the beginning of free agency we were trying to manage our situation. “We didn’t know what (Tkachuk’s) number was going to be, then we made the trade and we wanted to leave as much flexibility as you can.” Suffice it to say, his plans quickly changed. The two sides stayed in touch, but only after Treliving became comfortable with Kadri’s desire to sign in Calgary in recent days, and paid handsomely to release the team from Monahan’s $6.375 million hit. It did so by sending him to Montreal with a conditional first-round pick, which could be either 2024, 2025 or 2026. The return was coveted cap space and future considerations. As incredible a flame as Monaghan was in his first six years in Calgary, a mounting injury list has weakened him to the point where he has hurt the club as an expensive fourth-line liability in recent years. Through it all, Monahan was as good a soldier as a team could ask for, making Treliving somewhat emotional as he thanked the longtime assistant captain for his service. But like everything that happened in Calgary this summer, Treliving quickly turned the page on one of the league’s prized signings of the summer. “Putting (Cudry) in with the current centers we have gives us a tremendous group,” said Treliving, who tried to trade the 31-year-old Cup champion in 2019. “He has a unique combination of skill and snark and plays a premium position at center ice. “Watching him over the course of his career, he’s really developed the ability to play in all kinds of situations. “That mix is unique, he can play on the power play, he can play heavy, he’s very competitive, very skilled. Smart player and plays in the center of the ice. “He’s our kind of player.” Darryl Sutter’s kind of player is, too, which has Flames fans debating whether this year’s team will be better than last season’s 111-point edition when it was Gaudreau and Matthew Tkachuk. It’s an incredible conversation given where this club was after losing Gaudreau for nothing. “You deal with it – it’s not just me, it’s our staff,” Treliving said, drawing global praise for his crisis management. “You dig in and get to work and say, ‘how do we make our team better?’ “The last month has probably been a bit more dramatic with the people and players involved. “You can curl up and play woe or dust yourself off and chase it, and that’s what we did.” Seven million per year (and a first to make the deal possible) is a hefty price tag, but the intangibles and pedigree Kadri brings as one of the league’s fiercest competitors should continue to help shape the Flames into a springier menace . “When there’s a lot on the line, some are tense and some embrace it — he loves the spotlight,” said Treliving, who knows how hard it is to land a top-six center. “He plays to that limit, which we appreciate. He has crossed the line a few times and paid for it. “You mature and learn from it. When we did our homework, he just kept coming back as a winner.” Does it change the team’s identity? “I don’t think our identity has changed at all,” he shrugged. “We have very competitive players, a team that is competitive, checks hard, plays hard and hopefully can play any way the game needs to be played. But before we get to the identity, let’s get into the camp.” Before then, no one would put it past Treliving to make another move or two. With 10 defensemen signed to one-way deals, you get the feeling it’s not over. “We’ve made our team better by adding Naz and we’ll continue to do that,” Treliving said. “We still have a lot of defenders. We can tweak a few things beforehand.” And maybe bring some moving boxes for his daughter while he’s at it.
