When it comes to moving down into the higher-end selections of the 2025 NHL Entry Draft, Calgary Flames general manager Craig Conroy acknowledges that it’s not easy. I know that people use moving down and moving up interchangeably. It gets confusing. Here, I’m referring to obtaining an earlier pick.
“It’s so hard to get up in the top five,” the second-year GM cketold the Barn Burner: Boomer and Pinder with Rhett Warrener podcast on June 17. “I mean, you would love to get, and for sure, everybody’s like, I was when we were watching the draft lottery, when I’m thinking, Oh, please be number nine. So, we would have went down to six.”
The old-fashioned way
The Flames narrowly missed out on moving from #18 to six, the lowest they could have had their first round pick move to. Despite that, Conroy is open to moving down the old-fashioned way, via trade.
“No, I do think it’s there,” said Conroy on finding a way to move down by trading with another NHL general manager. “I do think talking to different GMs and it’s there, but it’s going to be there at the day of the draft because like I said, I don’t know how it’s going to unfold moving down. You know, and they said we have a group of players of three players we really would like, but if they’re gone, we’d be willing to move back because then they kind of had a larger group where they feel comfortable with.”
That gives us something to work with. Conroy provided one more clue:
“So, and they would like to add more picks, especially teams that don’t have a lot of picks.”
Which teams don’t have “a lot” of selections at this draft—and also own a lower first round pick than Calgary at #18?
That’s a tricky one. Of the teams below Calgary in the draft order, only one team doesn’t have at least seven picks this year. The Utah Mammoth.
But they’re only missing a seventh and own all their original picks otherwise. Every other team may not have “a lot” of draft picks—but all of them at least have the standard amount allotted per year to each team.
With that said, let’s give it a try. Which teams might Craig be talking about?
New York Rangers – #12 Overall
Rangers GM Chris Drury has to decide between keeping this pick or next year’s first as part of the JT Miller trade. If he keeps it, the team is doing great this weekend. Eight picks in seven rounds. They even have two thirds.
The 2025 NHL Entry draft is fine for the Rangers. The next two drafts? Not so great.
The Rangers are without their second round picks and their fourth round picks in 2026 and 2027. The conversation to move down six spots this year would likely start with a second round pick in return.
Any precedent for that?
Last year, San Jose Sharks GM moved from #14 to #11 in order to select London Knights defenceman Sam Dickinson. The cost was an extra second (Adam Kleber) at #42 being sent to Buffalo. Buffalo saw that their guy in forward Konsta Helenius was going to slide a little further and were happy to take the extra draft capital for their troubles.
Columbus Blue Jackets – #14 Overall
Holding two first round picks in Minnesota’s at #20 from the David Jiricek deal and their own at #14, veteran GM Don Waddell may see that surplus as an opportunity to draft a few extra players.
The team does have seven picks in seven rounds; not exactly a deficit, but they’re missing a third and a fifth. Their extra seventh round pick, acquired in the Jonathan Quick deal (God, remember that?) surely doesn’t excite the scouting staff as much as another pick in the top 100.
Let’s take a moment and consider why we’re spending so much time wondering if they could; we might need to stop to think about whether they should.
First of all, the Calgary Flames don’t roll like that.
The Old Flames Ways
You have to go back 35 years to the last time the Calgary Flames moved up in the first round. It—well, just, here:
To Calgary:
1990 1st Round Pick – 11th overall (Trevor Kidd)
1990 2nd Round Pick – 32nd Overall (Vesa Viitakoski)
To New Jersey:
1990 1st Round Pick – 20th overall (Martin Brodeur)
1990 2nd Round Pick – 24th overall (David Harlock)
1990 2nd Round Pick – 29th overall (Chris Gotziaman)
One hundred more wins than the next most winningest goalie (Marc Andre Fleury – 575) with 691, despite 105 of those being winnable ties if played in today’s overtime/shootout format. The Flames traded Martin Brodeur for Trevor Kidd–and some other stuff.
Such a traumatic loss that the patterns of behaviour within the organization were changed for three and a half decades, and are going strong. We may never see the Flames try it again.
Dramatic? Sure. Hyperbolic? Admittedly. But it is weird that the Flames don’t move down occasionally.
Even in the later rounds, the Flames aren’t huge on trading down. Conroy is yet to do it, Brad Treliving didn’t do it over nine seasons. Nor Jay Feaster. You have to go back eighteen years to when Darryl Sutter traded down twice in 2007, landing forward Mickey Renaud in the fifth and defenceman Keith Aulie in the fourth.
To Calgary
Fourth round pick – #116 – Keith Aulie
To Vancouver
Fifth round pick – #139 – Bradley Eidsness
Fifth round pick – #147 – Jean-Simon Allard
To Calgary
Fifth round pick – #143 – Mickey Renaud
To Colorado
Sixth round pick – #155 – Jens Hellgren
Sixth round pick – #169 – Radim Ostcril
So that’s it? The Flames are horrible at moving down in the first round because of that one time? They haven’t done it in 35 years, and they’ll never do it again?
You’re right.
Let’s go big and end on a high note.
Taking a Swing at Number Two
Mike Grier, general manager of the San Jose Sharks and owner of the second overall selection at this year’s draft, made waves at his end-of-season media availability. Per Sheng Peng of San Jose Hockey Now:
“I’m not gonna say no, someone wants to make a really good offer of established young players,” said Grier when asked about moving the second overall pick. “There’s a Ricky Williams-Herschel Walker type offer up? We’ll listen.”
According to Grier, it’s possible. The Flames could make an offer similar to what the New Orleans Saints gave up for fifth overall in 2000. Let’s take a look at what the exchange looked like:
To the New Orleans Saints:
First round pick in 1999 – #5 – RB Ricky Williams
To the Washington Redskins:
First round pick in 1999 – #12
Third round pick in 1999
Fourth round pick in 1999
Fifth round pick in 1999
Sixth round pick in 1999
Seventh round pick in 1999
First round pick in 2000
Third round pick in 2000
No big deal. Just an entire draft of picks and a first and a third in the following year.
We don’t need to go into the massive trade tree that didn’t work out particularly well for either team, or the fact that when the Saints finally got their next first round pick two years later, they drafted another running back while Williams was still on the team. The point of suggesting a Ricky Williams trade is that a team will have to sell the farm with an unconventional offer.
Also, it might get weird.
Williams had a fine career, running for 1009 yards and recording 66 touchdowns across eleven seasons. Only three of those seasons were with the Saints, but you can’t blame that fact on their talent evaluation. Washington ended up flipping several of the acquired picks to Chicago, who didn’t do much with them. No one in Chicago was surprised.
“I wouldn’t have done it,” said Williams, now retired, about the deal that brought him to New Orleans on the All the Smoke podcast in April. “I mean, if he would have come to me and he said, ‘I’m thinking about making this trade,’ I would have said, ‘Don’t do it.’”
You have to wonder if the Flames brain trust entertained the thought of their own Ricky Williams-style trade offer.
Forgetting that the Flames don’t have a fourth and can’t technically meet the price of that exact deal, acquiring #2 would take the extra first and third away next season that Calgary had stockpiled. They would likely retain Vegas’ first round selection, which was acquired in the Noah Hanifin deal. That pick projects in the 20-32 range.
Let’s say Calgary’s first rounder next season is top-ten protected. Given how many veteran NHL forwards the Flames carry, a downward spiral could happen any day. One that may last years.
That, or they successfully keep fighting for every point, every season, and the extra first round pick ends up in the 11-20 range. Best case scenario.
Years from now, we may look back on the concept as reasonable. Michael Misa, or Anton Frondell or even Matthew Schaefer if there is a surprise pick at #1 have a solid chance at outshining an entire draft year as well as a first and a third the following draft. The Flames also don’t see themselves as a team that will pick in the top five in the near future. It’s hard to say where they intend on acquiring high-end talent.
“Because again, with this, we might not be able to draft top five,” reflected Conroy on Barnburner. “You know, because I think our team, they work hard. We’re going to win games. Our young goalie played really well.”
It’s undeniable that the group believes that they can continue to over-perform, but for Conroy, the challenge will be making the team better as they continue to prove doubters wrong.
“Our guys believe, hey, we’re coming to win each and every night. So now, how do I kind of put the pieces together and add, but it really is going to be through the draft or trade.”
Ah, come on, Craig. Make the Ricky Williams trade. We’ll forgive you.
Stats via the National Hockey League and Puckpedia.
Aaron Portzline formerly of the Columbus Dispatch confirmed that a Ricky Williams-esque offer was once made between NHL teams at the 2012 NHL Entry Draft. For more on that, check out the thread below.
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