Brad Treliving Dismisses Dougie Hamilton Rumours

The media has been a bit crazy with rumours of the Calgary Flames shopping Dougie Hamilton to a few teams.  The most echoed rumours involved Hamilton to the Toronto Maple Leafs, but there's been about five teams in total that have supposedly been interested.  The Toronto rumours have predictably blown up with the Maple Leafs in town.

Would trading Hamilton fetch William Nylander coming back the other way?  Would Peter Holland be involved somehow?  What about Nazem Kadri to the Flames?  Are the Pittsburgh Penguins, Vancouver Canucks, or Arizona Coyotes looking at adding him?  Would the New York Rangers want him.

With so many rumours floating around, Brad Treliving decided to put them all to bed.  The Flames general manager spoke with the media today and stated that the blueliner was not actively being shopped to other teams.  NHL.com has the write up in what was actually a pretty interesting read.

"I will say it's interesting … I was at a game in Toronto and all of sudden … I wouldn't read anything into that. I go to a lot of games. I was at a couple of other rinks after that and nothing came out of it. Don't believe all that you hear," he said.

"Dougie's an important part of this team. It's hard to find players of his ilk. I don't put a whole lot of stock into all those comments. We always look to improve our team but the comments that we're shopping a particular individual is completely false.

It makes sense that the Flames aren't looking to move Hamilton.  Hamilton's game has improved considerably since he's no longer attached to Jyrki Jokipakka.  He's now tied for second on the team in points and his possession metrics have increased considerably.

While some consider the defense a position of strength for the Flames, that's no longer true once Hamilton is subtracted.  A bottom trio of Jokipakka, Deryk Engelland, and Dennis Wideman is a lottery-contending trio even if Mark Giordano and T.J. Brodie return to their stellar level of play and Brett Kulak continues to play like a number one defenseman.  Jokipakka, Engelland, and Wideman are all free agents to be as well and one would assume they wouldn't want to be actively shopping for three defenseman to round out their team next season.

There's no denying that the Flames need a winger, particularly one that can play the right hand side.  That being said, Brad Treliving seems to feel that having solid defensemen that can push possession and contribute with points is more important than finding a contributing winger.  Regardless of one's feelings on the matter, turning a position of strength into a position of weakness so that they can turn a position of weakness into a position of strength is just spinning the wheels and it makes sense to put the rumours to bed.