The Yegor Sharangovich extension could be the first miss of Craig Conroy’s GM tenure

Conroy hasn’t had many bad moves since being hired as general manager of the Calgary Flames last summer. He did luck out with Elias Lindholm, Noah Hanifin, and Chris Tanev rejecting his contract offers. Still, he had a great 2024 NHL Draft and this team looks poised to be making a reset of some sort.

However, one move that could take the cake as Conroy’s first major miss is the Yegor Sharangovich contract extension. Sharangovich signed a five-year, 5.75M extension with the Flames on July 1. That extension will kick in for the 2025–26 season, as Sharangovich is in the final year of his two-year, $3.1M AAV deal that he signed when he was originally acquired by the team.

On the surface, signing a player through his 27–32 years isn’t a terrible idea. Especially when he led the team in goals with 31 and had 59 points in 82 games. There was a very large majority of fans that wanted him to be extended. And I get why. He’s got a killer shot that seems to surprise most goalies in this league. I was in the small majority that said it would be better if the team sold high on him in the summer. When you looked at his underlying metrics in 2023–24, there was concern. The Flames were outscored 69–44 with Sharangovich on the ice at 5v5 last year.

Sharangovich in 2024–25

So far, Sharangovich has two goals and zero assists in eight games. He’s a minus-5, which is second worst on the team only behind Nazem Kadri. He is shooting 10% so far which is a drop off from his career average of 14.1%, so he should regress positively a bit. But there is immense concern given the investment the Flames made into him after his outlier 17.3% shooting percentage in 2023–24.

He is beginning to trend as a player with below-average offensive and defensive impacts after glancing at his Isolated 5v5 Impact courtesy of HockeyViz.com:

Ultimately, there’s lots of runway for Sharangovich to turn it around. But the reality is that the team has been outscored with him on the ice. As his poor 2024– 25 campaign continues, his 2023–24 season looks more like a mirage compared to the player he actually is.