Treliving: Flames would like to "get in front of" trade deadline craziness

Calgary Flames GM Brad Treliving was on Calgary’s Sportsnet 960 on Monday afternoon.

On how he views longer-term financial/contractual decisions on potential free agents on his own roster, in relation to the trade deadline:

“Yes, the deadline obviously is a trigger point because that ends a lot of your movement up until the end of the season, up until June. A lot of people may think you see the deadline, you see a lot of these deals – a lot of the planning even goes back to last summer. Even going into the draft. Talking about where players are and when movement may happen.

“So we spent a lot of time, last week even, again, refining a plan. Now whether the plan is able to be executed, is another part of it. But I fully believe you need to have your plan in place in terms of things such as contractual status, and where your roster fits, and who fits, and who doesn’t maybe in the following year, and who’s pending, and who you may be able to re-sign, and if you can’t, the fits that might be out there in terms of matches throughout the league.

“So those discussions happen now, and have been happening for weeks really. A lot of it too is you’ve got an A, B, and C plan, depending where your team is. It’s always difficult depending where your team is, if you’re taking things off your team and replacing it with futures in terms of picks and those things, as well as trying to project where other teams might be.

“So although a lot of the flurry happens at the deadline, or right before it, a lot of those things you try to plan for months in advance.

“Brian’s talked about it, and him and I have talked about it, he’s shown in the past too – you’d like to always get in front of it. The deadline... can just get crazy. We saw it even last year, when there were a couple of fish out there that in some cases ended up not moving, and in some cases not moving until late. It’s like a funnel. It’s like five lanes going into one, and it backs everything up. So you’ve got to be prepared and if it’s possible to get your business done ahead of it, you’d like to. That’s not always possible.”

Source: Sportsnet 960/ Transcript: Nichols on Hockey