I laughed when reading an earlier post, suggesting that Conroy is bad at trades, and while acknowledging that the Lindholm return was great for the Flames, only happened because Rutherford was being a good guy. The ideas that people come up with are fascinating.
The lesson learned is that even hardcore hockey fans like us have no idea of the NHL trade market (myself included) when looking back at the trade return suggestions brought forth over the last number of months.
I mentioned it in a post a few weeks ago, but I hope the Flames stop giving out NMC/NTC in the future (not sure how likely they'll be able to do that). For the discount they get, it's just not worth having to deal with, if the time comes and they want to trade the player away. I'd rather they eat the extra cap hit than struggle with a limited set of teams the player will go to. I'd also like the team to consider moving a player out when they're going into their 2nd last year on their contract in some cases. A market like Calgary needs to be extra careful with contracts and players on expiring deals.
Finally, overall, I think Conroy has done fine. We also know that Conroy said his management style is collaborative, which means all of his deals to date were definitely ones that had been discussed with a very experienced hockey management team and finalized with a consensus. Don't think he's doing this stuff lone ranger style.
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