Flames fans are doing a lot of talking about Fitzgerald but let's look at conroy:
Lost Zadorov trade
Lost Toffoli trade (Toffoli's metrics CLEAR) despite an unsustainable shooting heater from Yegor (who's metrics have not gotten any better contrary to belief)
Wasted an opportunity to trade Backlund by extending him into his late 30s (that move cost you another 1st as a rental)
Walking Yegor straight to UFA with a 2 year deal
No 1st for Tanev
Has now pissed off his starting goalie and is looking like he'll waste the peak of his trade value and make the flames pick worse.
Couldn't get Hanifin extended.
The Lindholm trade was decent enough in a desperate C market, but still had to take on a cap dump.
Mid 1st round pick on Honzek. Don't want to make assessments too early, but 67th in the WHL in PPG as a 19 year old from a draft class that good with a mid 1st certainly isn't a steal
This post will be a bit of a book. I figured I'd post my philosophy on evaluating GMs and team management. First I'll respond to the above.
Zadorov: You're correct, we lost that trade. Rumor has it he became a pariah in the locker room. How much did we lose it by? I think it's fair to say Zadorov was worth (in a vacuum) somewhere around a 2nd and 3rd round pick. We got the 3rd and the 2nd was a 5th. It's a loss, but not a massive one.
Toffoli: Would I take Toffoli ahead of Sharangovich? Yes, but not by a ton. Would I take one year of Toffoli ahead of 2 years of Sharangovich? No, I'd take the 2 years. You guys might be able to re-sign Toffoli, we couldn't. This is not a loss for Conroy. It's a win for our franchise. It might be a win for you guys if you can get Toffoli to sign a decent value deal.
Sharangovich is a nice middle six player. He's not a core piece. I have no issue walking him to UFA.
Tanev: There were apparently a couple of 1st round picks out there for Tanev. Both came with multi-year cap dumps. I don't love the value here, but it's not terrible.
I don't know how not being able to extend Hanifin is Conroy's fault. I love Hanifin's game, I'd like to sign him up to 8M per season. But Conroy can't make Calgary become Florida.
I think the Lindholm trade was an upper deck homerun. We completely disagree there. Brzustewicz, 1st and cap dump was my dream return for Lindholm. He exceeded that. I don't like Kuzmenko as a player, but he's entertaining and we aren't winning anyway next season.
I hated the Honzek pick. I'm on record saying it was a bad one. Should have been ASP or Oliver Moore there, especially when we are so deep at middle 6 wing. I do think he did well in the 2nd and 3rd round. Our 7th rounder could be the steal of that round.
On GMs and management:
A GM is essentially making bets with foundational information. NJ made a bet that their goaltending would be sufficient with a young blueline. I think the biggest market inefficiency in the NHL used to be undersized forwards. Teams adjusted and they are being valued correctly now. Then it was the smallish defenseman. Teams adjusted just in the past 2 seasons. They are being valued correctly now.
The current market inefficiency is goaltending. When high end starters like Bob, Vasy ect were getting 10M per season it made sense to go with a tandem of mid range goalies who you would hope to get one of them hot. Carolina kind of pioneered this. However, now quality starters are in that 6-8M range. Goaltending is the most volatile position in the sport. You know Jack Hughes is going to be PPG or better. I view it like this:
The top end of the goalie market you get 3 good seasons, 1 average and 1 bad every 5 years.
Mid range guys give you one bad, one good and one average.
Low end guys give you 1 good season every 3 seasons.
I'm saying Fitz made a bad bet based on the goalie market of today.