The Calgary Flames have had a rollercoaster start to their season. From a long losing streak to trade rumours galore, and a plethora of comeback victories sprinkled in, it’s truly hard to tell what to expect from this organization moving forward.
With yesterday’s announcement that the team traded Nikita Zadorov to the Vancouver Canucks in exchange for two draft picks, many wondered if this was the start of the massive re-tooling the team looks headed for. Although it looks like just an interim move to deal with Zadorov’s public trade request, there are surely more moves to come.
That is why many are looking at the Zadorov deal and are getting concerned with general manager Craig Conroy’s trading skills. After just two deals—both involving pending unrestricted free agents—the team has looked like they took lesser returns on both.
So is it too early to panic at Conroy’s trading mannerisms?
The returns for Calgary’s UFAs
Since taking the job as GM, Conroy has executed just two trades for the team: Tyler Toffoli to the New Jersey Devils and yesterday’s Zadorov deal. The return for the two players was a total of four assets:
- Yegor Sharangovich
- 2023 Third-Round Pick (Aydar Suniev)
- 2026 Third-Round Pick
- 2024 Fifth-Round Pick
Based on the performance of both players and removing all personal bias, it’s hard not to look at the return and say: “There could be more.” Both Toffoli and Zadorov were coming off career seasons with the Flames, during a year in which everyone was truly awful. They both stood out amongst the crowd and had very high values in terms of on-ice contributions.
Any contending team would have looked at both players, who had relatively manageable cap hits, and wanted them on their team.
The similarities in the Toffoli and Zadorov situations
It’s important to note that in both situations, the players and Flames had a lot working against them that would have hurt their values.
Both Toffoli and Zadorov were being traded closely after demanding trade requests from the team. So in both situations, Conroy was most likely already playing with a few cards on the table which makes it harder to drive the price up if teams know they will want out and have the Flames risk them for nothing.
Secondly, both players are pending UFAs at the end of this season. Since both have had strong on-ice results, they would most likely be looking for raises or at least the opportunity to hit the open market. Although the salary cap may be rising for next season, contending teams are already up against it and wouldn’t want to immediately commit money to either player. That drives the value down.
In this type of market, the Flames weren’t able to fully capture as much value as they could have, but it’s not like other teams’ pending UFAs are fetching first-round picks in December.
Thoughts on Conroy’s trading
I think there are two main takeaways from Conroy’s trading performance so far. The first is that in both deals, Conroy was able to gain a ton of cap flexibility that other teams would be dying for. The Flames are a team that historically doesn’t like to retain salary, and in both deals, they were able to remove the entire cap hit off the books. Even with Zadorov’s trade, removing $3.75M off the books in December allows them to be far more flexible with recalls and additional deals moving forward.
Say a team is looking to acquire Elias Lindholm, but needs to shed a $2.0M contract from their books as well. The Flames could take that on, at the price of an additional draft pick, leading to even better asset management down the road. Will they do that? Remains to be seen, but at least they are creating flexibility.
That being said, the biggest fault by Conroy here is that it feels as if both of his trades were rushed. Although both players requested trades, the team said they would work on their own timelines. Conroy noted that they wanted the full cap flexibility to recall some young players, but surely teams would have coughed up far more around the trade deadline for a player like Zadorov.
In Toffoli’s case, there didn’t even feel like there was a lot of smoke around a deal until it was done. Coming off a career year, and seeing how he has played this year, he could have been the deadline first-round pick that the team paid for him back in 2022. You risk some asset protection if you wait that long, but you also can reap the benefits more.
A mixed bag of trade outcomes
At the end of the day, I think it’s okay to feel both whelmed and concerned at Conroy’s trade history. Since there are more likely bigger deals to come down the road, he has ample time to redeem himself.
That being said, the rest of the three UFAs are in similar positions as his previous two deals and that surely should raise some red flags. Let’s hope that other teams are the ones to blink first here.
