Gaudreau leaving should have started the rebuild, and by Maloney's account, it was considered. They almost took a rebuild offer for Tkachuk until Florida stepped up there offer. At the time, it seemed like an overpay for Tkachuk, and most people and pundits declared Calgary the winner (which is why declaring winners on the day of a trade is often a bad idea). I will always argue that you can't walk a top-tier franchise player to UFA. You either sign him the year before, or you trade him, period. Trading Gaudreau after a less successful season would have still been preferable to watching him walk after a career season. Conroy won't make that mistake in the future, I bet.
The Kadri signing made sense if you were going to go all-in at the time. However, the real argument for me isn't Kadri vs Monahan. it is Treliving's relatively poor use of cap space. If Neal wasn't signed, then the Flames wouldn't have traded for Lucic, plus I do think there was additional dead cap space (buyouts from before - wasn't some Brouwer money still there?), so they wouldn't have had to trade Monahan out.
It is nice to see Monahan doing well. He is a guy you can't help but cheer for. He was groomed to be the future captain for a while. It is nice to see him having success again.
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