I think he’s already picked a lane, and part of that lane involves time.
At the end of the day, he’s traded away pretty much every UFA, and looks poised to do so again with Andersson.
If the team struggles this year (and yeah, it’s a good year to be bad, and they have a tough schedule to start the year), this may well be the year where other veterans decide to bow out (Kadri, and Coleman).
The neat thing with how Conroy has gone about business, we really only need one terrible season and then the hardest to fill check boxes are effectively filled:
Goalie (Wolf)
#1 defenceman (Parekh)
#1 centre (2026 draft pick)
It may not go sour this season, but if it does? I’ll consider Conroy to have executed very well on a very difficult path.
If the year doesn’t go sour, well…he’s already got an additional 1st in ‘26 locked down, and will likely have another high pick in the Andersson deal…and once you build an asset base that is overloaded, he’d then have the ammo available to be able to do quantity for quality trade.
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