Conroy explains why Calgary Flames stayed quiet on deadline day
The Calgary Flames are in a much different position now than a season ago.
Nearing last year’s trade deadline, it was very obvious that the Flames were sellers. They had already moved on from Nikita Zadorov and Elias Lindholm and, not long before the deadline, traded both Chris Tanev and Noah Hanifin. This year, it’s been much quieter.
The Flames have made one move this season, adding Morgan Frost and Joel Farabee from the Philadelphia Flyers in late January. Aside from that, however, it has been quiet in terms of both speculation and real-life transactions, and to little surprise, that remained the case today on deadline day.
Despite the Flames receiving some interest in a few pending UFAs, such as Joel Hanley and Dan Vladar, the offers never reached a point that intrigued GM Craig Conroy to pull the trigger. Instead, they’re going to allow this group to duke it out for a playoff spot.
“It’s a little different than last year obviously in where we are, but it’s a good thing because we believe in the team [right] from the beginning of the year,” Conroy said. “We made a trade with Philly, and we did it earlier. Other teams are doing it right now; we jumped ahead a little bit, and it made sense to us.”
Conroy did admit that he had discussions with other teams today, but in the end, he felt there were no offers on the table that made sense for his current group or the long-term future of the Flames.
“Today [we] talked to teams, and, was there something that makes us better today and long term? It just wasn’t there,” Conroy said. “We feel good with the team; we believe in the group, and they believe in each other, which is great.”
With 20 games to go in their season, the Flames currently sit one point up on the Vancouver Canucks for the final wild-card spot in the Western Conference.
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