From the outside looking in, Brad Treliving knew the Calgary Flames were building something. “The played hard in every game last season,” he said, having watched them as an assistant general manager with the Phoenix Coyotes. “I wondered if that would carry over into next season.”

Treliving was hired in April 2014 as the Flames’ new general manager. He was the only person Brian Burke interviewed for the gig.

Was he well-known? Well, his name was: His father Jim Treliving is co-owner of the Boston Pizza empire in Canada and an investor on “Dragon’s Den,” the show that begot “Shark Tank” in the U.S.

But now, with the Calgary Flames currently and surprisingly in a playoff position in the Western Conference, you might be hearing more of Brad Treliving’s name as a rising star among GMs.

“We had a little rough stretch in December, but we’ve been pretty consistent,” he said.

We spoke with him recently about the Flames’ success, Mark Giordano, Johnny Gaudreau, his relationship with Brian Burke, the Coyotes’ struggles since he left and how the Flames’ team building compares to that of the Oilers.

And here … we … go.

Q. You talked about having an outsider’s perspective. Is there anything in particular you think this helped with for the Flames?

TRELIVING: I knew Mark Giordano was a really good player. I didn’t know what kind of leader he was. He pulls and drags this team along with him. That’s been a revelation for me.

I thought T.J. Brodie was a young, emerging player, and he’s played at a level higher than where I thought he’d be at. Once we saw that on a regular basis, we moved to get him signed and locked up long term.

I saw Johnny Gaudreau as a college player. Knew he had a special skill set. Elite sense. Did I predict it would translate this quickly? No, we didn’t.

We wanted to stabilize the goaltending, give us a base to build upon. I thought Kari Ramo was solid last season, especially down the stretch. Adding Jonas Hiller gave us a foundation for goaltending.

I knew we had some missing pieces. We had some young players that were evolving. What kept me up at night was who was going to score for us.

When I talk about the outside perspective, I had a pretty good idea on some people. But we have a number of players that have exceeded expectations or been really good stories and have muscled their way into the picture.

All that said: We haven’t done anything. We’ve just sorta put ourselves in the mix.

You mentioned the young players being leaders on this team and carrying the water at times. Where does that come from? How come these young players have that kind of confidence and other teams, like the Oilers for example, have what feels like a culture of losing?

First and foremost, it’s the job Bob [Hartley] and his coaching staff have done. He’s put a real belief system in place here. He’s trusted young players.

We had a situation about 10 games into the year. We went from our opening day roster … we lost Mikael Backlund for two months. We lost Joe Colborne for six weeks. We lost Stajan for a month. Mason Raymond got off to a good start, but then he was out.

We woke up and realized that half the core group from opening night was gone. We had no other choice. We put young players in. And I think that really was a part of our season where we could have been like, ‘Hey, we’re young.’ But two things Bob demanded were that there were no excuses. We plug in the next player and we expect you to perform. And the showing confidence in those players. They’ll make mistakes. But they’ll go back out and away they go again.

And then there’s the leadership group, led by Mark. He didn’t let excuses creep it. We were going to go out there and play like a son of a gun.

View photos Feb 2, 2015; Calgary, Alberta, CAN; Calgary Flames defenseman Mark Giordano (5) battles for the puck with Winnipeg Jets left wing Andrew Ladd (16) during the second period at Scotiabank Saddledome. (Candice Ward-USA TODAY Sports) More

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