Feaster quiet at NHL trade deadline
‘We like our team,’ says Calgary GM
Jay Feaster, fuming on live television, griped about his team’s distinct lack of urgency. That was Thursday. Two nights later, he watched in horror as his Calgary Flames blew a three-goal lead en route to their third straight homeice loss.
And while that kind of sequence — fury, then failure — often adds up to change, it did not Monday. The Flames stood pat. Sitting south of the eighth rung in the Western Conference, Feaster orchestrated not a single deal — despite those pre-deadline threats of upheaval.
So, asked one reporter, what do you say to fans now?
“Well, we like our team,” replied the general manager. “This is a bigger day than Christmas — is that what I understand here in Canada? It’s a made-for-television event. This is the be-all and end-all. I’d like to think the fans were pretty happy on Jan. 6 when we picked up Blair Jones for Brendan Mikkelson. On Jan. 12, we picked up, I think, a glue guy here — Mike Cammalleri. This day, it’s so over-hyped that you lose track of the fact that we have been doing things.
“It’s OK to be emotional . . . but the last thing you want to do is make deals, move players, on the basis of emotion. It’s why we never make decisions about players after a game. After a game you’re too wound up, it’s too raw. That’s why I hope our fans feel good about the fact that there’s a deliberative process. It isn’t one guy making the decision. It isn’t, ‘I don’t like the way that guy’s hair looks this morning. Let’s move him.’ It’s about sitting down as a group.”
The Flames boss then addressed the segment of the city’s population that was expecting — that was begging for — a roster-wide shakeup. Or, at the very least, some sort of something.
“If it’s just the idea that this is like fantasy hockey and you wanted to see all these wheels and deals and moves, then I guess you can be disappointed — but we’re not disappointed,” said Feaster.
“I believe the answers are in that room.”
One of those answers got a financial vote of confidence Monday.
Tim Jackman signed a two-year extension, worth $612,500 per season.
Leading up to the deadline, the 30-year-old winger — and a few of the team’s other pending unrestricted free agents — had drawn significant interest, but no incoming bids blew away Feaster.
“There was nothing compelling to us,” he said. “If people were throwing first-round picks at us, we would have been having different conversations. We were not going to be selling.”
Buying, apparently, had been equally tricky.
“We were in on a number of things (Monday) . . . but we felt (because of) the prices, we weren’t prepared to do it,” said Feaster. “But we worked it hard, we worked it right up until almost 1 o’clock.”
In anticipation of the deadline, the Flames’ hockey-operations staff — managers and scouts and coaches — had gathered Sunday.
“We talked about the fact that, despite our disappointment about the way last week went, when the day started, we were one point back of the No. 8 spot . . . and we still believe we can make the playoffs,” Feaster said. “As we discussed all of that — as we discussed where we are, as we discussed our group — the decision was made . . . that if we could pick up pieces that would help us, we’d do that (but) we weren’t prepared to overpay for those pieces.
“But we made the decision that we wouldn’t be sellers. We weren’t going to bust this thing up.”
For those in the crowd dying for action, Feaster did add that recent dialogue with rival general managers would serve as a foundation for potential summertime swaps.
“It doesn’t mean they won’t be revisited,” he said. “There were some conversations where both sides said, ‘That’s not something we would look at right now. But if you’re serious, we’re serious. And we ought to have those conversations as we get closer to the draft.’ So you’re doing some groundwork as well.”