Brad Treliving will not return as the Calgary Flames’ general manager next season.
The Flames announced the move on Monday, saying the club agreed to “mutually part ways” with Treliving, whose contract expires on June 30.
“It’s a difficult day when you must part ways with a quality colleague and friend,” said Calgary Sports and Entertainment Corporation (CSEC) president and CEO John Bean in a news release.
“We are grateful of Brad’s contributions over the past nine years and wish him every success in his future, both personally and professionally.”
Don Maloney, who has been promoted to president of hockey operations, will also serve as the interim general manager.
“For our fans and our business, we need to move forward, and we are confident with Don’s experience that we will find the right general manger to build on Brad’s work and lead our team to the Stanley Cup,” Bean said.
Maloney just completed his fifth season as senior vice-president of hockey operations with the Flames, after originally joining the club in 2016 as a pro scout.
The Flames say the process to find the team’s new general manager will begin “immediately.”
“Today is not a good day for me, it’s not,” said Maloney.
“Stanley Cup playoffs start tonight and we’re not playing, number one, and number two is, Brad Treliving is a good friend,” said an emotional Maloney.
“He left us for his reasons, but we move on.”
Maloney then took a moment to thank Bean and the rest of the organization for allowing him to remain.
“If I was in their place I might have taken me to the city line and told me to face east and start walking and never return – based on the job we did this year.
The Flames say the process to find the team’s new general manager will begin “immediately.”
“My first task from (Bean) and the ownership is to do a deep analysis of this season. We had a team, have a team, that I believe should have been in the playoffs.
“We didn’t. We failed to achieve, and that starts at the management level, which I was a part of, the coaching, the players, the training, the entire organization, we have to do a deep look at how we operate, how we make decisions – and fix it.
“We have a good team here, we have good players here. No question we’ll be back next season better and hungrier, but we can’t just keep talking about it, we have to do it.
“We’re going to work very, very hard to bring a championship team to Calgary.”
Maloney says he doesn’t have a timeline for when a new GM will be hired, though he did say that the team’s assistant general managers – Craig Conroy, Brad Pascall and Chris Snow – are “strong candidates” for the position.
“But we also realize we would be short-sighted to not go out there and find the best candidate – and maybe one of them is.”
Maloney acknowledged that Snow’s ongoing battle with ALS would impact his interest in the role, but noted he remains an important part of the management group.
Calgary is the second team to change GMs this offseason, following the Pittsburgh Penguins, who fired Ron Hextall along with assistant Chris Pryor and president of hockey operations Brian Burke as part of a house-cleaning after missing the playoffs.
The Flames went 324-238-58 under Treliving and twice topped the Pacific Division with 50-win seasons (2019, 2022).
Treliving inherited Bob Hartley as a head coach and hired four: Glen Gulutzan, Bill Peters, Geoff Ward and Darryl Sutter.
Sutter previously coached the Flames from 2002 to 2006 and was GM from 2003 to 2010. The Flames hired him again in March 2021 when Ward was fired.
Treliving wasn’t afraid of chasing big fish with large cheques, or making blockbuster trades.
His most recent headliner was dealing Matthew Tkachuk to Florida for Jonathan Huberdeau and signing free agent Nazem Kadri last summer.
The Flames invested a combined $133 million and 15 contract years in Huberdeau and Kadri.
Treliving also got goaltender Jacob Markstrom under contract in 2020 for six years and $36 million.
Among his other notable moves was signing forward Johnny Gaudreau out of college in 2014, and trading Calgary’s first-round pick in the 2022 NHL entry draft to Montreal to get Tyler Toffoli.
EDMONTON – The Edmonton Oilers signed defenceman Travis Dermott to a professional tryout on Friday.
Dermott, a 27-year-old from Newmarket, Ont., produced two goals, five assists and 26 penalty minutes in 50 games with the Arizona Coyotes last season.
The six-foot, 202-pound blueliner has also played for the Vancouver Canucks and Toronto Maple Leafs.
Toronto drafted him in the second round, 34th overall, of the 2015 NHL draft.
Over seven NHL seasons, Dermott has 16 goals and 46 assists in 329 games while averaging 16:03 in ice time.
Before the NHL, Dermott played two seasons with Oilers captain Connor McDavid for the Ontario Hockey League’s Erie Otters. The team was coached by current Edmonton head coach Kris Knoblauch.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
NEWPORT, R.I. (AP) — Maria Sharapova, a five-time Grand Slam singles champion, led the International Tennis Hall of Fame’s fan vote her first year on the ballot — an important part to possible selection to the hall’s next class.
The organization released the voting results on Friday. American doubles team Bob and Mike Bryan finished second with Canada’s Daniel Nestor third.
The Hall of Fame said tens of thousands of fans from 120 countries cast ballots. Fan voting is one of two steps in the hall’s selection process. The second is an official group of journalists, historians, and Hall of Famers from the sport who vote on the ballot for the hall’s class of 2025.
“I am incredibly grateful to the fans all around the world who supported me during the International Tennis Hall of Fame’s fan votes,” Sharapova said in a statement. “It is a tremendous honor to be considered for the Hall of Fame, and having the fans’ support makes it all the more special.”
Sharapova became the first Russian woman to reach No. 1 in the world. She won Wimbledon in 2004, the U.S. Open in 2006 and the Australian Open in 2008. She also won the French Open twice, in 2012 and 2014.
Sharapova was also part of Russia’s championship Fed Cup team in 2008 and won a silver medal at the London Olympics in 2012.
To make the hall, candidates must receive 75% or higher on combined results of the official voting group and additional percentage from the fan vote. Sharapova will have an additional three percentage points from winning the fan vote.
The Bryans, who won 16 Grand Slam doubles titles, will have two additional percentage points and Nestor, who won eight Grand Slam doubles titles, will get one extra percentage point.
The hall’s next class will be announced late next month.
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The driver charged with killing NHL hockey player Johnny Gaudreau and his brother Matthew as they bicycled on a rural road had a blood-alcohol level of .087, above the .08 legal limit in New Jersey, a prosecutor said Friday.
Gaudreau, 31, and brother Matthew, 29, were killed in Carneys Point, New Jersey, on Aug. 29, the evening before they were set to serve as groomsmen at their sister Katie’s wedding.
The driver, 43-year-old Sean M. Higgins of nearby Woodstown, New Jersey, is charged with two counts of death by auto, along with reckless driving, possession of an open container and consuming alcohol in a motor vehicle. At a virtual court hearing Friday, a judge ordered that he be held for trial after prosecutors described a history of alleged road rage and aggressive driving.
“’You were probably driving like a nut like I always tell you you do. And you don’t listen to me, instead you just yell at me,’” his wife told Higgins when he called her from jail after his arrest, according to First Assistant Prosecutor Jonathan Flynn of Salem County.
The defense described Higgins as a married father and law-abiding citizen before the crash.
“He’s an empathetic individual and he’s a loving father of two daughters,” said defense lawyer Matthew Portella. “He’s a good person and he made a horrible decision that night.”
Higgins told police he had five or six beers that day and admitted to consuming alcohol while driving, according to the criminal complaint. He also failed a field sobriety test, the complaint said. A prosecutor on Friday said he had been drinking at home after finishing a work call at about 3 p.m., and having an upsetting conversation with his mother about a family matter.
He then had a two-hour phone call with a friend while he drove around in his Jeep with an open container, Flynn said. He had been driving aggressively behind a sedan going just above the 50 mph speed limit, sometimes tailgating, the female driver told police.
When she and the vehicle ahead of her slowed down and veered left to go around the cyclists, Higgins sped up and veered right, striking the Gaudreas, the two other drivers told police.
“He indicated he didn’t even see them,” said Superior Court Judge Michael J. Silvanio, who said Higgins’ admitted “impatience” caused two deaths.
Higgins faces up to 20 years, a sentence that the judge said made him a flight risk.
Higgins has a master’s degree, works in finance for an addiction treatment company, and served in combat in Iraq, his lawyers said. However, his wife said he had been drinking regularly since working from home, Flynn said.
Johnny Gaudreau, known as “Johnny Hockey,” played 10 full seasons in the league and was set to enter his third with the Columbus Blue Jackets after signing a seven-year, $68 million deal in 2022. He played his first eight seasons with the Calgary Flames, a tenure that included becoming one of the sport’s top players and a fan favorite across North America.
Widows Meredith and Madeline Gaudreau described their husbands as attached at the hip throughout their lives. Both women are expecting, and both gave moving eulogies at the double funeral on Monday.
