It’s early in the offseason of course, but since most of the quality UFAs have been signed, the next steps are signing RFAs and trades from teams that missed out on players in free agency. Who are the teams rumoured to be looking to finalize their roster through trade this summer? What are they looking for?
Most importantly - do the flames make good trade partners for any of these teams? As others have said, Conroy is likely not in a rush to trade any of Kadri, Andersson or Coleman but I would think he would consider trading them if they meet his price.
Beyond trading his valuable assets, there still might be a market for him to weaponize his cap space by taking on bad contracts from teams that need cap space. I’m starting to think the reason the flames have not been in on any of the cap dump trades so far is that Conroy’s price for taking on a bad contract is higher than most. I understand that a bit. If he goes to Edwards and tells him we’re taking on $5 million cap space in exchange for a 2nd round pick, likely the first thing Edward’s will do is compare that to what the flames gave up (a first round pick) to get rid of Monahan. From that perspective, he will think the flames are not getting very much return for taking on a bad contract. If conroy wants to make any trades that weaponize their cap space… he’ll have to explain that the Monahan trade was just a bad trade. Treliving paid too much to move Monahan and to expect the flames to get a similar return for being on the other end of that kind of trade is not reasonable. Especially now that the cap has gone up.
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