I don’t believe this. I think we add a few vets in UFA and go for a wild card; we try to be next years Nashville. Not saying I agree but there’s still alot of solid veterans on this team. I don’t think ownership is up for moving more of them. My feeling anyways on how the executive approaches the next five months.
I don't think Conroy will ever say the quiet part out loud, but I just can't see a situation where Calgary does anything more than middling/bottom feeding.
We had 5 Free Agents ending last season, all who were playing top 4D minutes or top 6F minutes.
We traded ALL 5. Like, we didn't overpay anyone to keep them, we didn't bend the knee to disgruntled players to make them happy... we shot them out of a canon. The fact that Conroy was willing to do that, is telling me that he won't be going hard on vet FA's to fill the void.
Partly, I believe, because there's no one that could actually fill that void.
Like, does signing Jason Zucker, Nakita Zaitzev and Matt Grzelcyk make this team any better?
There's no impact UFA's that'll come here outside of if Conroy loses his God damn mind and spends 11 million on Sam Reinhart; which hurts us more than helps us.
This should be simple:
- Trade Markstrom in the summer, he's clearly done playing here.
- See what Kadri's pulse is, if he doesn't want to be part of a rebuild there will be a few times willing to take on a ~70 point second line centre who can play both special teams. Especially at 7M, which is the same guys like Alex Killorn and Troy Terry are earning.
- See if any of your kids can take the next step.
- Be a middling/bad team for 2024-2025 and go get another centre.
I think it'd be funny if Calgary drafted Lindstrom in 2024, and then followed it up with McQueen in 2025.