Conroy has a set price for Andersson. Until it gets met - or until the deadline comes and the offers don't increase - Conroy will just sit on this asset. Why make a bad trade?
As for 'he needs to go since it will be a distraction' logic - distraction for what? Is this a contending year for the Flames? Team is rebuilding. Conroy will trade Andersson for picks/youth, not for help now. The team will actually become worse after this trade happens. So what distractions are we worried about it causing? Maybe I am missing something here.
There are only 2 minor reasons I have an issue with Rasmus being a Flame as the season starts - helping this team overachieve, and pushing an extra defencemen onto waivers. The latter is a small worry - doubtful Kuznetsov or Poirier get picked off of waivers, but I think there is a slightly bigger chance that Solovyov does this time around as he took a big step in his development last season, and I am not sure it went unnoticed.
I think Andersson should have been traded a couple of seasons ago simply because a large part of his valuation as an asset was that cheap deal, especially since the cap was flat and most teams were right up against the cap. It is what it is now, but I don't see a difference at the deadline with an extension or not for Andersson - teams almost always overpay for defencemen at the deadline. I expect a similar return to what Hanifin brought.
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