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Originally Posted by liamenator
However this turns out, if the stuff about Brisson is true, it's brutal.
What a grind this year has been for Conroy. It was already tough to have to deal with Tre's, um, legacy. On top of that, the whole league seems to have been trying to squeeze a first-year GM. He's done remarkably well so far.
This may end up being one of those scenarios in which you take a slightly lesser deal from a rental team in order to send a message to Brisson and other agents that this organization won't be strong armed, a la Burke not moving Cammalleri.
From a pure asset management perspective, that didn't make sense. But, looking back and as Burke said at the time, it was an important non-move that reset the perception of the organization around the league.
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There’s no conspiracy against Conroy and the Flames. Other GMs aren’t picking on him. Brisson isn’t doing anything the agents for other pending UFAs haven’t done in the past.
Market conditions are working against the Flames. Their big UFA is apparently only willing to sign with a couple teams. Several of the teams in win now mode have previously traded away their 1sts and 2nds. Others are more in need of a RHD than LHD. And the cap crunch makes any deal with significant salary difficult to pull off.
It’s frustrating. But talk about strong-arming and sending signals is off-base. The NHL trade market isn’t as emotional and macho as some fans seem to think. Taking a worse deal to ‘send a signal’ would be foolish. The only signal it would send would that they’re willing to cut off their nose to spite their face. Conroy and the rest of Flames management are smarter than that.
The bigger issue is that NHL players are exercising more control over where they play, and more and more of them don’t want to play in Canada. Fans need to recognize this unwelcome new reality. And Canadian teams need to get their heads around what this means for running their franchises. It probably means making tougher decisions sooner.