Flames Reveal Price They’d Pay for Top Six Centre

The Calgary Flames are off to a rollicking start to the season, at 4-0-1, leading the Pacific Division with 9 points. But they're not resting on their laurels. Calgary GM Craig Conroy admits his team still needs a top-six centre, and he's not hiding that fact.

It’s something we’ve been talking about for a long, long time.
When we lost (Elias) Lindholm (last season in a trade), a right-hand centre in your top-six, that’s kind of something you’d like to find. Is it an easy thing to find? Probably not.

Lindholm was traded to the Vancouver Canucks in February last season, and Conroy still wants to find a viable replacement.

As he told Eric Francis of Sportsnet, he wants to find an “age-appropriate” centre who can fit in with the Flames' long-term rebuilding plans. Conroy ideally is looking for an established pivot between the ages of 23 and 25.

How far would he go in a trade to land one? Think first-round pick. But only for the right guy.

“Unless you have some injuries and needed to do something, sending a first-round pick for a guy who would be here for a year doesn’t make much sense,” said Conroy. “But if it was a first-round pick for a guy who would be here long term, we would be open to that.”

The reason he's willing to go that high is that he admits that centres are "tough" to find.

“If you have them, you don’t really want to give them up. So that’s my job, to look and see if it’s out there.”

For now, Nazem Kadri, Mikael Backlund, Pospisil and Justin Kirkland are doing just fine, thanks, and so are the Flames. But Conroy won't rest until he brings in the pivot he's looking for.