For this being Craig Conroy‘s first NHL Trade Deadline as general manager of the Calgary Flames, he certainly has gotten ahead of his major work at the deadline. The Flames walked out of last season with seven pending free agents, and have taken care of nearly all of them.
He traded Tyler Toffoli and extended Mikael Backlund over the summer. Then he moved Nikita Zadorov before the end of the calendar year to the Vancouver Canucks. In 2024, he moved Elias Lindholm to Vancouver as well and sent Chris Tanev to the Dallas Stars. Finally, last night he moved Noah Hanifin to the Vegas Golden Knights. This leaves just Oliver Kylington as the sole significant free agent for Conroy to sign or move, and all signs point to him re-signing with the team.
However, don’t expect this to be a quiet deadline. There is still more in the pipeline for Conroy to finish before the deadline passes. Here is what Conroy ought to do.
Pull the trigger on a Jacob Markstrom move
The Flames currently sit eight points outside of a playoff spot, and have now traded away their top line centre, and two of their top four defencemen. They also are without Connor Zary for the foreseeable future and Martin Pospisil for this pivotal three-game road trip. It’s almost foolish to think this is a playoff team this season.
Unlike last year when the team couldn’t buy a save, it’s their goaltending which is keeping them in the playoffs. Now 34, Jacob Markstrom is in the tail end of his career and will likely regress substantially before his contract is up.
The Flames are in retool mode, with the team looking at a couple of years of pain before regaining competitive status in time for the new arena to open. It is not worth keeping Markstrom and his six-million-dollar-a-year salary through that process. Not only is he expensive and hurting the team’s chances of picking higher in the draft lottery, he is also blocking Dustin Wolf from playing NHL games.
With a very small market for Dan Vladar’s services and a very desperate New Jersey Devils team, moving Markstrom would be shrewd business for the Flames boss. If they can acquire a young prospect or two like Simon Nemic or Alexander Holtz as well as a draft pick (or multiple picks), it would help this team in the long run.
The basics of asset management are to sell high and buy low, and moving Markstrom right now is the right move for this franchise.
Pick up a pick in exchange for retaining salary
The most expensive thing in the NHL right now is cap space. With the cap having remained so flat for so many years, cap space is at a major premium right now, and now is the time for the Flames to pounce. Teams are willing to pay draft picks for other teams to retain salary even just for the balance of this season.
The Philadephia Flyers acquired a fifth-round pick for holding 25% of Hanifin’s salary for the balance of the season. Just over a million dollars pro-rated for a fifth-round pick is a small price to pay for another lottery ball in the draft.
The Tampa Bay Lightning and New Jersey Devils got a fourth-round pick each for retaining salary on Adam Henrique and Chris Tanev respectively. The Flames have had a knack for finding late-round steals, and more opportunities to pick is always better for a rebuilding team than less.
Assess the market on Andrew Mangiapane
If there is one player that the Flames should look to move on from as part of this retool, it’s Andrew Mangiapane. He is just one season removed from a 35-goal campaign and has been one of the best two-way forwards on the team since coming into the NHL.
Despite being a smaller forward, he can slot in anywhere in a team’s lineup and is signed for a reasonable $5.8 million to the end of next season. Mangiapane is the type of player that contenders look for. The type of player who can score as well as be defensively responsible. If the Flames were to retain salary here, the haul could be big for the former Soo Greyhounds star.
Mangiapane does have an eight-team no-trade clause, but that leaves 24 teams that he still can be freely traded to. With a number of players that they simply cannot move including Jonathan Huberdeau and Nazem Kadri, Mangiapane feels like a guy who could be moved without too much disruption. Plus moving him would open a spot on that like for Jakob Pelletier, which seems like a natural spot for the young Quebec-born prospect.
While the odds of this happening between now and Friday are lower, this is a move that the Flames should seriously consider if a team were willing to pony up a strong return for Mangiapane.
Pour himself a glass of champagne for a strong first Trade Deadline
No matter what happens, this has been a good first trade deadline for the Flames’ new GM. To this point, he has made the trades he needed to, and unlike his predecessor, has not paid a mid-round pick for a seventh defenceman.
While only the Lindholm trade has looked like a fleecing to this point, Conroy has acquired reasonable value back in exchange for all of his assets. This is more than can be said for former GM Brad Treliving, and when the clock strikes and the deadline does slam shut, barring any colossal disastrous moves, Conroy should raise a glass to toast to his first deadline in charge of the Flames.
