Projecting Calgary Flames Forward Lines: Has Craig Conroy Dug Himself a Hole?

Ah, the dog days of summer. 

Playoffs are over, free agency and the NHL Entry Draft have come and gone, general managers are quietly going on vacation in that small portion of the calendar that sees hockey put to rest before things begin to kick back into gear in late August.  

Utah Mammoth GM Bill Armstrong, for example, is currently on vacation, enjoying Yellowstone National Park, where he called into the 100% Hockey Podcast on Monday to provide an update on the direction of his team. With things slowing down and Armstrong’s roster signed through next season, it’s unlikely that the Mammoth will pull off any moves in the next couple of weeks. The same applies to most teams that have their rosters locked down through 2025-26.

You have to wonder if the same can be said for Craig Conroy and the Calgary Flames. 

Still a restricted free agent, 23 year old Connor Zary needs a contract.  

Defenceman Rasmus Andersson’s situation remains awkward. The team and Rasmus’ representation are reportedly a long way from any notion of an extension and insiders have confirmed that the 28 year old defenceman has been involved in trade talks this summer. 

Zary and Andersson remain works in progress, but that’s not all that Conroy might want to address before the Oct. 8 season opener in Edmonton.  

Gilding the Lily

For a team claiming “retool”, Conroy sure has a lot of veterans among his forward ranks.  

Let’s take a look at how Daily Faceoff currently projects the lineup. We won’t know how Huska is going to deploy his forwards until training camp, so a grain of salt is necessary.

Huberdeau-Kadri-Zary (RFA)  
Coleman-Backlund-Coronato 
Farabee-Frost-Sharangovich 
Lomberg-Pospisil-Klapka 
Kirkland 
Hunt 

At face value, it’s not that bad. Too much depth can be a good thing—as long as your veterans are pulling their own weight on both ends of the ice.  

A little devil’s advocate here: What if a Joel Farabee, or a Morgan Frost, or a Yegor Sharangovich goes on an extended cold streak?  

Management and coaching have proven in the past that they’re willing to show patience with veterans. The Flames deployed all three through their various funks last year. Frost, for example, went on three cold streaks of four or more consecutive pointless games in his 32 games with the Flames.

Farabee and Sharangovich were worse when it comes to how often and how long their cold streaks extended in 2024-25. The point here isn’t to tear these guys down. What we’re getting at is that the top end of the development system is chock-full of veterans who demand a certain level of patience. If they’re playing through something and aren’t scoring? They can do that for quite a while. 

The message that it sends to those playing well in the AHL? Until player X absolutely cannot dress for a game, your wait is indefinite.

One Too Many 

Let’s put aside the Sam Honzeks and the William Stromgrens who look at that lineup with despair during the preseason: potential injuries aside, there is no way that Martin Pospisil is starting the season on the fourth line.  

Most Common Linemates – Martin Pospisil – 5v5 

Huberdeau & Kadri: 291:30 
Kuzmenko & Kadri: 101:12 
Frost & Sharangovich: 101:06 
Zary & Kadri: 98:36 

The whole Pospisil is a grinder, so he goes on the fourth line concept is out to lunch. Fans only saw the speedy puck retrieval specialist deployed on L4 last season when coaching staff implied that he was playing through something. The now 25 year old ended up playing a mere 47:30 with Kevin Rooney and Ryan Lomberg over the 81 games he dressed for.

This is all a long way of saying that something has got to give.

Head Coach Ryan Huska can use a fourth line demotion as the stick, but the carrot of moving up the lineup will be far more scarce. If Pospisil plays top nine, someone with an AAV of at least four million dollars per season will be plugging it out in a checking role to start the year.

Speaking of salaries.

Sunk Cost Respect 

Let’s look at the same forward group in terms of the annual average value of their contracts.  

$10,500,000-$7,000,000-$4,850,000 (RFA estimate) 
$4,900,000-$4,500,000-$6,500,000 
$5,000,000-$4,375,000-$5,575,000 
$2,000,000-$1,000,000-$1,250,000 
$900,000 
$825,000 

The top nine is certainly interchangeable—as long as you ignore that Nazem Kadri and Martin Pospisil were glued at the hip last season.

So, let’s assume that Martin is back with Nazem next year. The combo is a Huska staple, so the idea isn’t out of left field. Now they have to move someone to a fourth line that Huska tends to put away in the later stages of the game.

For fun, let’s also entertain the idea that Sam Honzek is once again blowing the doors down in the preseason. If the 21 year old is outplaying veterans in camp, do we see two players making four million or more playing on the fourth line?

It would appear that Craig Conroy has dug himself into a bit of a hole and may need to trade a contract or two if he wants the organization to be able to provide prospects with the opportunity to seize a spot organically.  

To add salt to the wound, the Flames have something of a murderer’s row of a forward group playing in the AHL next season. Matvei Gridin, Andrew Basha, Rory Kerins, Sam Honzek, Aydar Suniev, William Stromgren, and Jacob Battaglia all have NHL-level talent and are expected to push for a role with the big team in the next three years. If any of those players catch fire in 2025-26? We may have a bit of controversy on our hands.

Wise Words

Conroy commonly refers to a bit of criticism that former Head Coach Bob Hartley provided during the mid-2010s when the executive filled various roles in the management group. Hartley used the term “falls in love with players” when offering advice to Craig. Bob would imply that Craig becomes too invested in the assets that he scouts and the talent that he or his scouting group identify, which can lead down treacherous paths in the business of professional sports.

Has Conroy done that with this current iteration of the Flames roster?

It’s not the worst problem in the world to have solid depth, but this current Flames forward group appears to be a situation of too much of a good thing.

Stats via Puckpedia, Elite Prospects, and the National Hockey League.

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