[ComixZone]

Originally Posted by gvitaly

Came across an interesting article about NHL Execs evaluating Conroy:

Cool article. With Parekh's confidence, I wonder if he didn't raise some red flags on the character front. Easy for youthful confidence to come off as blind arrogance.

Some more standouts:

Exec Two: “I think he’s done a good job for the most part. He could have got some better returns for some of the guys they dealt if they traded them in the summer as opposed to deadline. Hanifin in particular. I know we offered more for him in the summer than they got at the deadline. I think he’s given the players a little too much power in the decision-making. From an outside view, it sounds like they make a lot of the decisions. You have teams like Tampa or Vegas. Cup-winning teams. They can be harsh to their players in the name of winning. I’d put Calgary on the other end. Not a way I’d run an organization to win. It’s tough sledding for a first-time GM. He’s had a good start to building out their future blue line.”

Grumble.

Exec One: “There was a lot of noise around Calgary last year. Seemed like we were hearing a new thing every week. I can understand wanting to keep things quiet. And props to them. It’s been real quiet. You always want to win games. We anticipated Calgary to keep trading away guys, but their upcoming free agents haven’t done much. We are certainly watching some of the guys who have a few years left there to see what the players decide to do with their future.”

That's a nice way to put it.

Exec Two: “I’ve been really impressed with some of their young guys. I think that entire organization has benefitted from a quieter season so far. I think other teams have downplayed them. That’s my one observation every time I watch them play. Other teams already look focused on the next one. But Calgary works hard. I don’t know where they go from here, though. Our internal models aren’t high on them. Lots of veterans on long-term deals. Still missing a couple top of the lineup guys. They have a lot of similarities to the Blues, and they are modelled pretty similarly.”

I think that's a fair assessment, and it's why the Flames need to sell on Andersson. They need to build themselves beyond what the Blues have done. The Blues look to be what happens when all you do is build through the middle/later parts of the 1st round.

Exec One: “I’m glad I’m not in his shoes. His young guys are performing well. Some of his vets are playing well. They don’t score a lot. They don’t have a top lineup guy or two to build around. They’ve shown that they aren’t a bad team, but they aren’t a good one either. Seems like they are always like that, haha!

Life as a Flames fan.

If I were in his shoes, I’d probably look to deal some of their older guys and go from there. Last year was a good start. We’ve heard some chatter around them adding young centres, but no one gives the good ones up. And it seems like everyone is looking for centres on the market this year. I know when they interviewed GMs, I heard most of the candidates said they would completely gut and build that team up again. Those guys didn’t get the job, obviously.”

More evidence that ownership/sr. management don't want a full rebuild. Time will tell...

Exec Two was not kind to the returns on Tanev and Hanifin - and I think that's a good assessment - but likely misses the fact that Noah's agent got pretty involved and messed with Conroy's ability to maximize return:

Don’t know if there’s been any big misses either, but the Hanifin and Tanev trades don’t look great. Our models thought they should get a higher return for both, especially with retention.”