[FanSince'01]

Originally Posted by Aarongavey

Trading Kadri would be the opposite of how Conroy has done this rebuild. He has basically done two kinds of trades so far, always mainly for futures.

1) Trade players who are pending free agents to make sure he does not lose an asset for nothing. These trades are obvious (Toffoli, Zadorov, Lindholm, Hanifin, Tanev). Toffoli was more of a trade to fit under the cap as it was done long before the season but for argument sake I will throw him in this bucket.

2) Trade players who are not pending free agents but are veterans in positions where the Flames have obvious replacements who can step in and play the position that the player being traded plays (Markstrom, Mangiapane). Markstrom had an obvious replacement (Wolf). Mangiapane had a slew of options who could play top 9 minutes on the wing (Huberdeau, Sharkey, Kuzmenko, Coleman, Pospisil, Coronato, Zary when he was a winger, Pelletier)

What he has never done in traded a veteran player who is not a pending free agent and plays a position that the organization has no depth or even young options in the system that could take the place of the player he is trading. It would be completely contrary to any trade he has ever done to trade a center when the team has at best 4 players who currently can play center at the NHL level.

If history is any indication the Flames would be way more likely to trade any of the following players if there is a market for any of them this year

Vladar (both a pending free agent and a player who plays a position that the Flames have a pending replacement)
Kuzmenko - pending free agent
Barrie - pending UFA who plays a position where there are many potential replacements
Andersson - one could say eventually there are potential replacements in the system, still feel that if this trade happens it does not happen until next year
Coleman - player who has a potential replacement in the system (doubt Conroy pulls the trigger).

The trade that makes the least sense is Kadri with 4 years remaining and playing a position that the team has no organizational depth. I would be shocked if Conroy made that trade based on the pre-requisites for most of his previous trades.

Agreed. I doubt Kadri gets traded for the exact reasons you've mentioned, given Connie's M.O. thus far and Kadri's NMC. Perhaps in a few years once his contract is running out and we have centers in the system to replace him, but right now it doesn't make sense.