Deals bolster injury-plagued blue-line
Injuries on defence prompts GM to opt for soup over milk ... or something like that
Brad Treliving must have been thinking about Boston’s famous chowder.
After all sorts of speculation that he was hungry to add another scoring threat, preferably a right-handed shot, the Flames general manager instead acquired a pair of blue-line reinforcements at the NHL’S trade deadline, then greeted reporters in Beantown and served up this appetizing analogy:
“I think a big thing to remember is that strategically, we may have had to change gears the last three weeks with our injuries on defence,” Treliving said. “Our needs … you know, when you go to the grocery store and you have no milk, but then you get some milk before you go to the grocery store and now you run out of soup and you only have 10 bucks to spend? Well, you buy the soup because you have the milk.
“We were missing players on the back end, so we had to buy some soup and hopefully, the milk up front will carry us through. That’s sort of how I look at it.”
Indeed, injuries to club captain Mark Giordano and shutdown sort Travis Hamonic altered Treliving’s shopping list prior to the trade freeze.
Before you run to the fridge for a snack, a recap of Monday’s moves:
Acquired defenceman Erik Gustafsson from the Chicago Blackhawks for a third-round pick in the 2020 NHL draft. The 27-year-old piled up 60 points last winter, sixth among all rearguards, but has less than half that many so far this season. Gustafsson is earning US$1.2 million and is set to become an unrestricted free agent on Canada Day.
Acquired another lefty blue-liner, Derek Forbort, from the Los Angeles Kings for a conditional fourth-round selection in 2021. Forbort, 27, has been limited to 13 outings this season due to a back injury but is back to full health. A big dude at six-foot-four and 219 pounds, he is also on an expiring contract. The Kings, in fact, will retain 25 per cent of his what’s remaining of his $2.525-million cap-hit.
Traded defensive call-up Brandon Davidson, suddenly pushed down the depth chart, to the San Jose Sharks for future considerations.
“We’re happy with what we got accomplished,” Treliving said. “When you look at it, we’ve lost two top 4 defencemen — and over the course of the year, three top 6 with Juuso (Valimaki) being out — so the last three weeks, we’ve really tried to put a focus on looking at our defence and looking at fits. No. 1, cost-effective fits, but also certain jobs they can do.
“Erik is a premier power-play player. That’s really his bread and butter. He had 60 points in the league last year and we felt that was an area, up top, that we could address and a job that we could fill and he could help us. … In terms of his puck poise, he’s a lot like Rasmus (Andersson). He has a long fuse with the puck. He has a hell of a shot from the point. He really has that patience. He has that ability to freeze guys at the line. He’s very heady in terms of moving it. It sort of seemed everything he touched last year went in, but I wouldn’t say his game has changed a whole lot.”
And Forbort?
“He’s sort of a big, rangy defenceman,” Treliving said.
“He adds some weight. He adds some size. He adds some defending ability. He’s very good on the penalty kill. So we looked at that as two ways not only to address personnel that is out but then when Gio comes back, maybe there is a way to lessen his workload on both sides of special teams. That was really the thought process.”
Giordano is on this five-game road trip, has looked sharp in practice and could return as soon as Tuesday’s battle against the league-leading Boston Bruins at TD Garden (Sportsnet West/ Sportsnet 960 The Fan).
Hamonic, meanwhile, will likely miss “a few more weeks.”
Gustafsson has oodles of experience on the right side, important flexibility for a squad with a logjam of left-handers.
Forbort has logged a good chunk of time with Kings workhorse Drew Doughty, so he, too, can handle heavy minutes.
These might not be top-of-the-ticker trades, but they are not insignificant additions, either. Interim skipper Geoff Ward will certainly have plenty of options with his pairings.
And his forward lines?
Those remain unchanged.
The Flames will hope that Johnny Gaudreau, Sean Monahan and Elias Lindholm can rediscover some of the chemistry that made them one of the most dangerous trios in hockey in 2018-19.
The NHL’S third star of the week, Andrew Mangiapane, won’t have to worry about being bumped off the second line by some new guy.
Monahan’s junior buddy, Tyler Toffoli, was instead shipped last week to the Vancouver Canucks.
Andreas Athanasiou will get to showcase his speed as Connor Mcdavid’s new tag-along in Edmonton.
Chris Kreider, who always seemed too expensive for the Flames’ tastes, ultimately didn’t need his suitcase after signing a long-term extension with the New York Rangers.
Kyle Palmieri didn’t move, either.
Treliving admitted that he did lots of nibbling in the forward market, but couldn’t find a fit.
For a rental, he wasn’t willing to surrender a first-rounder.
“Part of this, too, is we have had young players emerge,” he said. “I didn’t want to come in here and all of a sudden put the Mangiapanes and the (Dillon) Dubes in the back seat. You have to keep giving them opportunities. We’ve seen young guys emerge. We’ve seen Sam Bennett play, to me, some of his best hockey of the year recently.
“You can always look outside or you can say, ‘OK, let’s shore up. Let’s give ourselves some depth. Let’s put some confidence in the people you do have.’ Our big bullets, in terms of draft picks, we saved in our holster. I’m excited. I’m excited that we addressed some areas of need, which was our blue-line right now.”
In other words, he figured that the Flames needed soup.
Will the milk spoil their playoff hopes? Time will tell.
“Where we’re at right now, we wanted to see if we could push it. We wanted to go to the room and say, ‘Look, we’re trying our best to help,’ ” Treliving said.
“As I told both of them (Forbort and Gustafsson) on the phone, the reason we got them is we’re trying to make a push. ”
ICE CHIPS: Wondering about the conditional pick in the Forbort swap? It turns into a third-rounder in 2022 if a) the Flames advance to the Western Conference final this spring and the new guy suits up for at least half of their playoff dates or b) Forbort re-signs in Calgary instead of departing as a free agent. … The Flames reassigned defenceman Alexander Yelesin and right-winger Buddy Robinson to the AHL’S Stockton Heat.