When Brad Treliving and the Calgary Flames decided to part ways following the 2022-2023 season, it opened the door for fan favorite Craig Conroy to move to the big chair. Conroy stepped into a tenuous situation, with the team having just fallen flat in the first season of the post Gaudreau/Tkachuk era and he inherited a roster with seven notable pending UFAs.
Roster Ruminations
NHL Roster
When he took over as GM, Conroy stated two goals publicly. First, learn from Gaudreau’s departure to avoid losing UFAs for nothing. Second, bring some younger players into the NHL roster. The first season of Conroy’s tenure saw the Flames struggle to stay in the playoff race all season but Conroy made good on both his stated goals. He traded one of their pending 2024 UFAs in the offseason, sending Tyler Toffoli to the Devils for Yegor Sharangovich and a draft pick. Another, Mikael Backlund, was extended and named captain ahead of the season. Nikita Zadorov, Chris Tanev, Noah Hanifin and Elias Lindholm all had new homes by season’s end and the Flames started to restock their futures cupboard with the trade returns. Next season looks like it could be more of the same, with a projection from the model that looks like they’ll be outside the playoffs looking in again.
Salary Cap Management
Brad Treliving locked in roughly 25% of the Flames cap space on Jonathan Huberdeau, Nazem Kadri, and MacKenzie Weegar before he left town. It’s a big chunk to have tied up on players that have not proven they can drive the bus themselves over their first two seasons in Calgary. On top of that base, however, the Flames cap situation is much more flexible. They have about 20% of their cap space available for next season and they have quite a bit more coming off the books over the next few seasons. Huberdeau, Kadri and Weegar will be hard to move, but the rest of the roster is reasonably flexible.
Future Assets
The Flames prospect pipeline was in rough shape when Conroy stepped into the GM’s office and he clearly prioritized picks and prospects in trade returns for the Flames pending UFAs this past season. Their collection of future assets is in better shape than it was a year ago but there’s still a long way to go. Hockey Prospecting ranks the Flames 24th in the NHL for their prospect pool that is headlined by Hunter Brzustewicz, Samuel Honzek, Matt Coronato and Connor Zary. Their draft pick profile is in better shape, with 24 picks in the next 3 drafts and a success probability profile that is well above baseline.
What’s Next?
Barring an unexpected turn, the Flames are likely stuck with the long term deals that Brad Treliving signed in the summer of 2022. Huberdeau, Kadri and Weegar simply haven’t been good enough to make them attractive to other teams at their current cap hits and the length of the deals makes retention less palatable for the Flames. The trio can, however, provide some value to a young team over the next few seasons as mentors for prospects working on establishing themselves at the NHL level. Kadri, in particular, seemed to embrace that role as the 2023-2024 season rolled on as he found success with linemates like Connor Zary and Martin Pospisil.
For their part, Zary and Pospisil were not simply passengers either. Both established themselves as NHL regulars with strong performance this season. There may not be much development runway left for Pospisil (24) but Zary (22) still has a few years left for development. The Flames added to this younger cohort, particularly on defense, with their trade returns this season and it looks likely that it’s this group they see bringing them back into the playoff picture. With a new area scheduled to open in 2026 or 2027, this group will be hitting their prime around the same time as the new barn opens.
While the intention to turn the ship around with a quick 2-3 year retool is admirable, it may also be wishful thinking. The Flames have been operating with a depleted prospect pipeline for years and there simply isn’t enough in the 20-24 year old cohort to reasonably expect to build a contender with it. It would require significantly more patience, but a better plan would likely be to focus on their 19 and under prospects and the next 3 upcoming drafts, which they’ve stockpiled an enviable quantity of picks for. They could also look at moving some of their players currently in their prime or coming off strong seasons to further supplement that future cohort. The Huberdeau/Kadri/Weegar triad is enough veteran presence for a roster in this state. Others, like Blake Coleman or Yegor Sharangovich may net solid returns on the trade market that could consolidate the Flames roster assets into a younger, future cohort that has a better chance to develop into a contender.
Craig Conroy met the expectations he set for year one of his tenure, avoiding a mass exodus of UFAs and shifting to a younger roster. With players reportedly forcing his hand, it may have been the easy part. Year two is likely going to tell us a lot more about where the Flames are headed under Conroy’s direction.
