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Friedman: Canucks ‘considering’ move for Flames’ Connor Zary

Photo credit: Sergei Belski-Imagn Images

By Ryan Pike

Oct 10, 2026, 22:04 EDTUpdated: Oct 10, 2026, 22:24 EDT

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The biggest story for the Calgary Flames this past week, arguably even more prominent than the team’s slow start, has been the saga of forward Connor Zary.

Zary was scratched last Saturday in Vancouver, back in the lineup on Sunday in Seattle, on waivers on Monday, assigned to the American Hockey League on Tuesday, and played his first AHL game in three years on Friday. It was a fairly eventful week for the Saskatoon product.

During the second intermission of Sportsnet’s Saturday Night Hockey broadcast, Elliotte Friedman provided an update on the swirling trade market for Zary’s services during his Headlines segment.

Here’s Friedman:

Last night, Connor Zary returned to the American Hockey League, scored, after the clearing waivers, in his first game. I don’t get the sense anything is imminent right now. The Flames only have one retention spot available and they don’t want to retain money, so it’s probably going to take something creative. But I do think Vancouver is one of the teams that has looked at Zary. I think there’s a few more, obviously, but I’ve heard the Canucks are one of the teams that are considering it and it makes sense.

Some housekeeping: the 25-year-old Zary is in the second year of a three year contract that carries a $3.775 million cap hit at the NHL level. Every NHL club is allowed to retain salary on three active contracts at a time, and they’ve already retained on the trades that sent Nazem Kadri and Blake Coleman elsewhere, so they have one retention slot available. It’s reasonable to suspect that they would prefer to utilize that retention slot on a larger, more impactful deal than a “change of scenery” trade for Zary.

The Wranglers’ game on Friday night, featuring Zary’s return to the AHL and him scoring a key goal for the Wranglers, featured an unusually heavy amount of scouts in attendance for an early-season AHL club, with 20 organizations represented on the scouting list – including, among others, the Canucks.

Since Craig Conroy became Calgary’s general manager in 2023, he’s made two trades with Vancouver already, so it’s not like them being a divisional foe has been an impediment to making moves if they make sense.