Hopefully it's posturing, but that's pretty strong language from Dreger.
Hopefully it isn’t.
Everyone reporting on Kadri has expressed how happy he and his family are here. We are historically a team that struggles to sign free agents and retain talent due to our location. Ownership fully understanding how much Kadri, who is a leader on the team and in the room, wants to stay, and making that known, is a net positive for the organization.
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Everyone reporting on Kadri has expressed how happy he and his family are here. We are historically a team that struggles to sign free agents and retain talent due to our location. Ownership fully understanding how much Kadri, who is a leader on the team and in the room, wants to stay, and making that known, is a net positive for the organization.
Winning is what allows you to retain talent and sign free agents.
Flames had no issues attracting free agents like Markstrom, Coleman, Tanev, Kadri, when they looked like they were building a contender - the whole can't attract free agents thing is very over blown.
Vegas, Edmonton, Florida etc right now are able to retain and attract free agents because they built winners, if they didn't win the other stuff wouldn't matter. Edmonton and Florida both used to struggle to retain those players too - then they built winners and now free agents want to go there.
Last edited by SuperMatt18; 11-06-2025 at 11:33 AM.
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Everyone reporting on Kadri has expressed how happy he and his family are here. We are historically a team that struggles to sign free agents and retain talent due to our location. Ownership fully understanding how much Kadri, who is a leader on the team and in the room, wants to stay, and making that known, is a net positive for the organization.
I think the UFA thing is strongly overblown. We struggle to sign UFA's when we're not competitive. We've never had issues signing big names when we've been competitve. The brand new arena will only make this better.
Hate how this narrative has become such a thing.
Markstrom, Coleman, Kadri, Tanev. All highly sought after UFAs.
Huberdeau and Weegar were in their last years. They could of just waited it out to UFA.
The Flames will survive after trading Kadri. He's been a good warrior and 2C but our Franchise isn't dependent on him.
Last edited by traptor; 11-06-2025 at 11:37 AM.
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I think the UFA thing is strongly overblown. We struggle to sign UFA's when we're not competitive. We've never had issues signing big names when we've been competitve. The brand new arena will only make this better.
Hate how this narrative has become such a thing.
Markstrom, Coleman, Kadri, Tanev. All highly sought after UFAs.
Huberdeau and Weegar were in their last years. They could of just waited it out to UFA.
The Flames will survive after trading Kadri. He's been a good warrior and 2C but our Franchise isn't dependent on him.
By far the key reason they got close to the dance last year was kadri, he’s our best player by a margin
I think the UFA thing is strongly overblown. We struggle to sign UFA's when we're not competitive. We've never had issues signing big names when we've been competitve. The brand new arena will only make this better.
Hate how this narrative has become such a thing.
Markstrom, Coleman, Kadri, Tanev. All highly sought after UFAs.
Huberdeau and Weegar were in their last years. They could of just waited it out to UFA.
The Flames will survive after trading Kadri. He's been a good warrior and 2C but our Franchise isn't dependent on him.
I really like Huberdeau as a person, but let's not pretend that Walsh didn't have Tre over a barrell on that contract.
Everyone reporting on Kadri has expressed how happy he and his family are here. We are historically a team that struggles to sign free agents and retain talent due to our location. Ownership fully understanding how much Kadri, who is a leader on the team and in the room, wants to stay, and making that known, is a net positive for the organization.
When the Flames were good, they didn't struggle to sign free agents. Markstrom, Tanev, Kadri, and Coleman are some examples. Unfortunately, the Flames were capped out for most of it.
Even a guy like Zadorov. He didn't love playing in Canada, or Calgary, but he wanted to win, so he re-signed here. Toffoli wanted to come back too, but the Flames weren't offering him a contract.
My point is that you don't need to keep Kadri in order for free agents to want to sign here. You need to build a good team.
An argument can be made that being around Kadri helps young players develop more rapidly, so it will have more of a future impact than the return can get you, but I'm a bit skeptical here.
It makes me cringe whenever owners get this level of involved, but I guess eventually after enough time possessing an NHL team, even good owners like the Samuelis step in and deliver what turns out to be, in retrospect, a franchise-altering veto/directive.
Also IMO it's not a great look when ownership talks to media, but Murray certainly wouldn't be the first. I think the owners of a couple Eastern Conference teams have done that before too.
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Everyone reporting on Kadri has expressed how happy he and his family are here. We are historically a team that struggles to sign free agents and retain talent due to our location. Ownership fully understanding how much Kadri, who is a leader on the team and in the room, wants to stay, and making that known, is a net positive for the organization.
I see what you're saying but Kadri is 35.. if there's a good deal on the table he needs to be out the door, and I'd say that about anyone. He's a great player and person but this is business.
He makes $7M/year, he and his family will be happy enough somewhere else as well, and he'll get a say in where he goes because that's the kind of good guy Conroy is.
Don't lose a guy for nothing like we did with Johnny and Gio. Players weren't tripping overthemselves at the door trying to rush to Calgary after we did those guys a solid.
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If Edwards wants Kadri to stay in Calgary, then he really is a short-sighted businessman. From an emotional standpoint, everyone wants Kadri to stay - he loves it here, we love him here; no issue with that. From an asset management standpoint however, dude is 35 and is up against the clock now for his production and effectiveness. He's one of the few chips we have that we can leverage to help build this team's future.
Murray likely just sees dollar signs from potential playoff games, and nothing else (as farfetched as that sounds looking at our record, but they're always like this). That's the only reason I can think that we would hold onto Kadri for the long-term. And Murray better hope that Kadri pulls a Pavelski, because it gets riskier and riskier from this point on.
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It feels highly likely that the flames could play themselves back into the mushy middle however never quite getting into the playoff race but distancing themselves from the basement. We see Andersson go for futures and perhaps Coleman but if the team is competitive I could easily see them holding onto Kadri.
With that said this could be the Flames message to other teams that if you want Kadri you better blow their socks off because he loves the city/team and the team loves him and there is no reason to divorce other than the flames need to rebuild and Kadri could help a team chase the cup.
Remember, ownership didn’t want to move on from Iginla either until his age and restricted destinations reduced his trade value to very little.
I think the lesson Edwards learned from the Gaudeau fiasco was to not let UFAs walk for nothing. But I don’t think he’ll ever be onboard with tanking.
In an article in the Athletic today, Bill Armstrong talked about how the Coyotes/Mammoth management team were patient and focused on their rebuild. “We had a plan to gut the team and grab assets and then draft well, build a good scouting staff, and go to work.” I just don’t see Edwards having the appetite for that kind of long-term strategy.
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Last edited by CliffFletcher; 11-06-2025 at 12:17 PM.
Largely, the Calgary Flames have always been a reactively managed, and very rarely proactively managed organization. So far under Conroy, it has also been this way.
If the Flames want to prioritize a top-end/top-pick in the draft, I do feel like some proactive management is needed.
If the Flames are committed to this "culture first re-tool", which I'll call nonsensical and detached from the competitive reality of the NHL, we'll continue to see purely reactive management (in that we'll ride Andersson to the trade deadline if not beyond that, and not trade Coleman nor Kadri - unless they specifically request a trade, at which time the Flames will react to that as well).
I suspect if they stick to a reactive model, the Flames will likely play themselves to a position where they draft somewhere in and around 10th-15th overall, rather than 1st-8th'ish that they'd end in if they proactively manage this year.
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Largely, the Calgary Flames have always been a reactively managed, and very rarely proactively managed organization. So far under Conroy, it has also been this way.
If the Flames want to prioritize a top-end/top-pick in the draft, I do feel like some proactive management is needed.
If the Flames are committed to this "culture first re-tool", which I'll call nonsensical and detached from the competitive reality of the NHL, we'll continue to see purely reactive management (in that we'll ride Andersson to the trade deadline if not beyond that, and not trade Coleman nor Kadri - unless they specifically request a trade, at which time the Flames will react to that as well).
I suspect if they stick to a reactive model, the Flames will likely play themselves to a position where they draft somewhere in and around 10th-15th overall, rather than 1st-8th'ish that they'd end in if they proactively manage this year.
What about Conroy's moves have been reactive?
I personally don't go ditch to ditch on media reports about the inner workings of any franchise. Could be true. Could be partially true. Could be completely made up by the media, or the Flames for value.
Better to see what actually happens then act like this is something new to fret over.
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I think the UFA thing is strongly overblown. We struggle to sign UFA's when we're not competitive. We've never had issues signing big names when we've been competitve. The brand new arena will only make this better.
Hate how this narrative has become such a thing.
Markstrom, Coleman, Kadri, Tanev. All highly sought after UFAs.
Huberdeau and Weegar were in their last years. They could of just waited it out to UFA.
The Flames will survive after trading Kadri. He's been a good warrior and 2C but our Franchise isn't dependent on him.
All of those UFAs came over when we had a draft developed core ready to compete in the playoffs. A rare bright spot in historical talent depth.
I see what you're saying but Kadri is 35.. if there's a good deal on the table he needs to be out the door, and I'd say that about anyone. He's a great player and person but this is business.
He makes $7M/year, he and his family will be happy enough somewhere else as well, and he'll get a say in where he goes because that's the kind of good guy Conroy is.
Don't lose a guy for nothing like we did with Johnny and Gio. Players weren't tripping overthemselves at the door trying to rush to Calgary after we did those guys a solid.
I don’t for a second doubt that they would trade him for the right return. But what’s being said sure isn’t posturing. It’s real, they mean all of it, and it’s a good thing.
