It remains early days in the National Hockey League’s 2026-27 regular season, yet some organizations are already making confounding decisions that have analysts and fans scratching their heads. Perhaps the most curious sequence of events so far involves the Calgary Flames and center Connor Zary.
The trouble in Calgary began immediately as the puck dropped on the new campaign. The Flames stumbled out of the gate with four straight blowout losses, looking completely outmatched on both sides of the ice. To make matters worse, they dropped their first three contests by a combined, lopsided score of 16-3. In response to this dismal start, general manager Craig Conroy made a surprising and aggressive gamble, placing the 25-year-old Zary on waivers. To the surprise of some hockey observers who expected a depth-starved team to take a flier, no NHL franchise stepped up to claim him, allowing him to pass through unclaimed.
To be fair, nobody is suggesting that Zary is the second coming of Connor McDavid when it comes to lighting up the scoresheet. At 25 years of age, he may well have already reached his competitive ceiling in the world’s premier hockey league. Even so, this is a proven NHL player who has quietly put together a respectable resume, producing 87 points through 193 career regular-season games. Furthermore, in the mere two games he played just before being cast down to the American Hockey League, Zary managed to record an assist, showing that he was still actively contributing on the ice.
While he might not be a franchise savior, Zary is a capable depth forward who theoretically should have something meaningful to offer any organization looking to bolster its forward lines and add internal competition. That is what makes this particular sequence of events so baffling. It feels premature to essentially give up on a player of his caliber at this exact juncture of the season, at this point in his contract, and during this specific chapter of the Flames’ organizational development.
Zary is notably under contract for another full season after this one concludes. Meanwhile, the Flames are still very much entrenched in the early stages of an extensive and painful multi-year rebuild. Given that reality, what was the massive rush to get Zary out the door and push him completely out of the NHL picture? It is a move that, when examined against the backdrop of Calgary’s long-term timeline, simply does not seem to make complete sense.
According to a report from Sportsnet’s Eric Francis, the saga may not be entirely over. Zary could potentially be packaged and moved in a trade by the Flames rather than forcing him to spend the remainder of the season lingering in the AHL with the Calgary Wranglers now that he has cleared waivers. However, what teams are actually likely to step up and make a compelling pitch to Conroy?
Any potential trade depends heavily on the financial framework of the deal—specifically, how much of Zary’s remaining salary Conroy is willing to retain on the books to make a trade fit comfortably underneath an interested club’s hard salary cap.
Possible Trade Destinations For Connor Zary
If the conversation turns to a franchise like the Toronto Maple Leafs taking a calculated flier on Zary, general manager John Chayka possesses more than enough available cap space to fully absorb his current contract without needing any financial retention from Calgary. Even so, every single dollar Chayka might save on Zary’s contract is ultimately a dollar he could deploy elsewhere on his roster. Because of that fiscal flexibility, Toronto might still decide to attach an additional draft pick to a deal only if Calgary agrees to retain a significant portion of his salary.
Alternatively, a team like the Seattle Kraken has previously found success operating on the other side of these exact types of transactional missteps, where an organization essentially waves the white flag on a younger player too soon. A prime historical parallel is the case of Morgan Geekie, whom Seattle allowed to leave for nothing as a free agent and who has since blossomed into a much more impactful player with the Boston Bruins. The Kraken could view Zary as a low-risk, high-reward reclamation project, taking a calculated chance to see if he can eventually develop into a more prominent piece of their long-term puzzle.
These potential scenarios highlight the inherent risk the Flames are taking on with this transaction—a very real gamble that increasingly feels like an unforced error by the front office. When a professional hockey club has played less than five percent of its total regular-season schedule and is already aggressively throwing roster players overboard, it naturally raises concerns that management might be panicking and throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Zary possesses undeniable NHL-level talent, and his current salary is certainly not so punitive or burdensome as to permanently price him out of hockey’s top tier for the long haul. If general manager Craig Conroy is simply trying to maximize a return on investment for a player who genuinely does not fit into the locker room’s future coaching or tactical plans, that rationale would at least be understandable.
However, there is an obvious, looming risk that saying goodbye to Zary so hastily could ultimately blow up right in the Flames’ collective face. And if it does indeed backfire, parting ways with a useful, cost-controlled piece this early in a long, difficult season will prove exceedingly difficult to justify to a fanbase already weathering the trials of a rebuild.