Flames general manager Conroy explains why key players were traded to Ottawa: “

‘I couldn’t get them signed’: Flames GM Conroy explains why prominent players were traded

There was one thing that was non-negotiable for Craig Conroy.

If soon-to-be free agents on the Calgary Flames’ roster weren’t re-signed by the trade deadline, they were getting moved.

The GM has been consistent about that since the day he was hired.

And maybe today, now that the dust has cleared, it might appear that Conroy’s plan the whole time was to trade away as many veterans as possible and get younger.

But as the first-year GM reiterated after Friday’s deadline, that simply wasn’t the case.

“I couldn’t get them signed. I tried up to a week ago and just couldn’t do it,” Conroy said. “I had to stick to what (I said on the day I was hired). It feels like it was yesterday, but it was a long time ago. If I couldn’t get them done, I had to move them along.”

In the end, Conroy traded away five of the seven prominent players who were set to become unrestricted free agents.

Tyler Toffoli was dealt before last year’s draft. Nikita Zadorov was moved after his agent went public with a trade request. Elias Lindholm was traded during the all-star break, and then Chris Tanev and Noah Hanifin were shipped out shortly before the deadline.

Mikael Backlund re-signed and Oliver Kylington is still with the team, but there’s confidence he’ll re-up with the Flames. Kylington missed a season-and-a-half while he attended to his mental health, but has looked great since returning to the lineup.

It’s tempting to look at the five guys Conroy moved away and see them as being part of one big plan, but the reality is the situation with each was different and evolved over the 10 months since Conroy was hired as GM.

The Flames were working to get a few of them re-signed before the season started, for example, but when the team misfired coming out of the gate and stumbled to a six-game losing streak, the situation changed.

The Flames were a little more hesitant to commit to a core that looked so flat and the players themselves understandably wondered whether Calgary presented the best place for them to compete for a Stanley Cup moving forward.