Calgary Flames GM Conroy admits to mistake he made with Markstrom trade
It’s been nearly two years since the Calgary Flames traded Jacob Markstrom, but GM Craig Conroy still has some regrets on how he handled the situation.
At the time, rumours of the Flames moving on from Markstrom had been going on for quite some time. Despite rampant speculation, Conroy didn’t make a move at the 2024 trade deadline and instead waited to get a deal done with the New Jersey Devils in the offseason.Ā
There appeared to be some friction between the Flames and Markstrom after not getting a deal done at the deadline. Conroy went as far as asking the goaltender to waive his no-trade clause at the time, but still didn’t pull the trigger on a deal.
The Flames GM talked about the situation on the latest edition of the Missin’ Curfew Podcast, where he admitted some regrets about how he handled things with Markstrom’s camp.
“One of the mistakes, teams were calling on Markstrom,” Conroy said. “I kind of went to [Markstrom] and said, ‘Hey, I don’t know where this is going, but would you be open?’ and I think that’s something I learned. I would never do that again.
“Once you open that door, it just felt like our relationship was off. It really was just moreĀ that teams were calling me constantly, looking for goaltenders.”
Trading Jacob Markstrom was an early learning lesson for Craig Conroy when he become GM of the Calgary Flames @DKNetwork | #DKPartner pic.twitter.com/2zKrj54fk9
— Missin Curfew (@MissinCurfew) May 17, 2026
Luckily, the Flames did not have too much trouble replacing Markstrom with youngster Dustin Wolf, who quickly jumped into the starting role for the following season. Still, you can tell that the way Conroy handled it was bugging him.
Going to Markstrom to ask him if he’d be open to a trade, and then not getting a deal at the deadline, really hammered home that Conroy had made a mistake.
“I could tell when we didn’t make a trade at the deadline, how frustrated he was,” Conroy said. “It was a good learning thing. I’m like, ‘Ok, don’t do that again, Craig,’ that was a mistake.
“You’re gonna make mistakes, and you’re gonna learn from them… We ended up trading Markstrom during the playoffs, but it wasn’t quite as smooth and as nice as I would have liked.”
Though it surprised him, it’s not like this was his first gig working in an NHL front office. Conroy joined the Flames organization as a special assistant to the GM back in 2010-11 and had been serving as an assistant GM since 2014-15 before he got promoted to the GM job in 2023-24.
In the end, the situation didn’t leave any long-term scars for the Flames, and Conroy is likely better off from it. He’ll need to put those lessons to good use this summer as Calgary looks to take a step forward in its rebuild.