Calgary Flames general manager Brad Treliving continues to make life miserable for the Vancouver Canucks.
When he signed Jonathan Huberdeau to that $84-million, eight-year contract extension that will run until the newly acquired winger is 37 years old, he set a lofty potential comparable for J.T. Miller, who's three months older and was originally selected just 12 positions after Huberdeau in the 2011 draft.
Now, Treliving has handed out another fat long-term deal to an older player. On Thursday, he signed Nazem Kadri to a seven-year contract with a cap hit of $7 million per season.
Kadri is two and a half years older than Miller — turning 32 just before the season begins, on October 7 and drafted two years earlier, in 2009. Like Miller and Huberdeau, he's coming off a career year, when he put up 87 points in the regular season. But unlike those two, he has also now hoisted the Stanley Cup.
Kadri's signing gives Miller's reps additional incentive to continue to hold out for a fat long-term deal, although the fact that he landed in Calgary does suggest that Kadri needed to make a different kind of compromise in order to get the long-term security that he was seeking.
When speaking with the media on Thursday, Treliving confirmed the rumour that has been floating around for three years — that the Flames had a deal in place to acquire Kadri from the Toronto Maple Leafs during the 2019 offseason, but the player refused to waive his no-trade clause. And that's how he ended up in Colorado.
So — he has just agreed to join a team that he previously went out of his way not to play for.
Of course, the landscape is different than it was three years ago. But in some ways, it's also remarkably similar.
For one thing, Kadri is Canadian. It's possible that staying on the same side of the border carries extra appeal now, as travel challenges and Covid restrictions continue to make life complicated.
As for the Flames themselves...
In the 2018-19 season, Calgary finished comfortably first in the Pacific Division, with 107 points, but then got dusted in five games in the first round by Colorado. At that time, Bill Peters was in his first year coaching the team and had improved their record by 23 points in the regular-season after they'd missed the playoffs the previous season. Johnny Gaudreau had hit his first career peak with 99 points, Sean Monahan was second with 82 points, and the nucleus was young. Gaudreau, Monahan, Lindholm, Tkachuk, Hanifin and Rasmus Andersson were all 25 or under.
The 2018-19 Flames were not as defensively stout as this year's model. They ranked ninth in goals against, at 2.72, and 11th on the penalty kill. Mike Smith and David Rittich manned the crease during the season, and Smith played every minute in the playoffs. He pitched a shutout in Game 1, but couldn't deliver the game-changing goaltending that was needed the rest of the way, and the Pacific Division champs bowed out of the postseason quickly.
A year later, Treliving began his direct assault on the Canucks, stealing away Jacob Markstrom, Chris Tanev, Josh Leivo and Louis Domingue in free agency. At the time, Markstom and Tanev were under the same type of scrutiny in Vancouver that Miller is now. The pair are only a month apart in age: they were 30 when they signed with the Flames — Markstrom for six years and Tanev for four.
And like Kadri, Blake Coleman landed in Calgary with a Stanley Cup pedigree, after two championships with the Tampa Bay Lightning. He'll turn 31 in November, and has five years left on his deal.
Calgary's defense is still pretty young — Tanev is the only blueliner over 30. And Andrew Mangiapane is a productive scorer who's probably in his career sweet spot at age 26.
The Flames will need to hit on some of their young forwards over the next few years in order to balance out the aging curve and cap demands of their highest-paid stars. But Treliving's aggressive offseason has been an impressive response after he was served up some very tough circumstances by Gaudreau and Tkachuk as free-agency opened.
The Flames have demonstrated that they're aiming to keep their competitive window open for at least the next couple of years, which isn't great news for a Canucks team that is looking to make a move up the Pacific Division standings and climb back into a playoff spot next season.
Treliving has also demonstrated that, while we keep hearing about how hard it is for NHL management teams to make big moves in this flat-cap era, there are ways to make things happen. The question now is whether these big long-term commitments will turn out to be worth it for Calgary. Or will their cap hell down the road turn out to be a bigger price than they should have been willing to pay?
On Thursday,
The Athletic released its annual 'Front-Office Confidence Rankings,' asking readers to grade their favourite team's management groups and, if they choose, all groups around the league.
The good news for the Canucks is that they took a solid move up in the first post-Benning survey: from 29th last year up to 21st this season. And while there's acknowledgement that Jim Rutherford and Patrik Allvin are working from a disadvantaged position because of the way the roster was laid out when they took over, there also seems to be a bit of frustration that we haven't seen more action yet. That's probably amplified by Rutherford's past reputation as a wheeler-dealer when he was in Pittsburgh. And it also contrasts sharply with all the big moves being made over the Rockies in Cowtown.
Canucks/Flames head-to-head games are often fascinating affairs, but local fans will have to wait to get a full impression of the new-look rivals.
The preseason kicks off with the usual head-to-head split-squad games, on Sunday, September 25. For the most part, each team's stars skate on the home side in those games, so it's highly unlikely that we'll see Huberdeau, Kadri or Markstrom in Vancouver.
The Canucks will then play in Calgary twice in December, on the 14th and on New Year's Eve. And they'll host the Flames twice in the last couple of weeks of the season — hopefully, important games with playoff positioning on the line on Friday, March 31 and Saturday, April 8.
Finally — Friday is semifinal day at the World Junior Championship, and one Vancouver prospect is guaranteed to get a chance to play for gold.
Jacob Truscott's American team was upset by the Czechs in the quarterfinals, so Truscott goes home with a plus-three and no points in five games, averaging 13:54 of ice time per game.
Friday's early game, at 1 p.m. PT, will pit Canada against Czechia. Then, in the late game, it'll be a head-to-head matchup between Joni Jurmo and Jonathan Lekkerimaki as Finland takes on Sweden at 5 p.m. PT.
The gold-medal game is set for 5 p.m. PT on Saturday, with the bronze-medal match at 1 p.m. Pacific.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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