FORT LAUDERDALE — Nine months into his tenure as a GM overseeing a significant refurbishment, Craig Conroy said one thing has become obvious.

“I’ve got to work on my Russian, for sure,” he joked, alluding to the five Russian players the Flames have added under his watch, including yet another young comrade just before Friday’s trade deadline.

Fact is, nothing has been lost in translation since Conroy made his first of five trades involving core veterans with expiring contracts.

From Day 1 he clearly identified the team needed to get younger, the cupboards needed to be restocked, and the way he would do it was by avoiding the scorched earth approach.

He’d do it with a mix of youngsters taking advantage of opportunities, aided by veteran guidance.

The combination has been effective the last month, as the team is on a 10-4 run to stay in a playoff spot despite swapping out pillars like Elias Lindholm, Chris Tanev and Noah Hanifin.

While there has been plenty of discourse over the return the rookie GM received in each trade, there is no debate that the way Jacob Markstrom’s situation unfolded was regrettable.

Reports of a near-trade with New Jersey were followed by weeks of uncertainty and bad feelings, which the netminder confirmed last Friday when he said he thought, “things could have been handled better up top.”

The comments threatened to overshadow the Miikka Kiprusoff jersey retirement, and came on an emotional day for a man who had just said goodbye to one of his hockey besties, Tanev, the night before.

Now that the trade deadline has passed, and the 34-year-old remains in Calgary with two more years left on his contract, the question for Conroy at his post-deadline wrap-up was whether that relationship needed smoothing over.

“The one thing I know, Jacob is a competitor and he cares about these guys,” said Conroy, dancing around the question.

“And you’ve seen, I know there’s been noise, but all he does is play well.

“Jacob and I are going to be fine. 

“He’s going to be exactly what he’s been, one of the best goalies in the league.”

Fair enough.

Unwilling to get into the speculation over whether they did or didn’t come close to trading Markstrom, Conroy did suggest he wished all the endless speculation surrounding his team at the trade deadline could’ve been kept in-house.

“I wish I could have calmed the noise, but you can’t,” said Conroy, whose club has been in the spotlight most of the season with an endless series of storylines that threatened to disrupt.

“I know what it’s like, it’s very hard.

“It’s an uncomfortable thing, you have kids, you have family.

“I totally understand it.

“You wish you could keep it out of the media but that’s not the way it is today.

“The way these guys have handled it, and risen to the challenge every day, it’s very impressive and it says a lot about the team and the belief they have in each other.”

And so, they move on.

Markstrom’s future with the club will likely to be the first thing the two discuss at season’s end.

With all the heavy lifting taking place the last few weeks and months, an admittedly-exhausted Conroy made two depth moves Friday, adding big-hitting San Jose Sharks defenceman Nikita Okhotiuk for a fifth-round pick.

They also signed Kevin Rooney to a one-year contract extension.

Would he have liked to have inked several newly-departed players to extensions?

You betcha, as he tried as recently as last week to take one final run at keeping Hanifin.

But as fans in Calgary know too well, when players become unrestricted free agents, they have the power to chase greener pastures.

One player who didn’t is Oliver Kylington, as Conroy is more interested in the young man’s well-being, first and foremost.

“I wanted to make sure Oliver felt comfortable — it’s been a long year-and-a-half and we’ve reached out to his agent to see how he feels and if he wants to continue to do this,” he said of the pending UFA who missed 20 months to deal with mental health issues.

“It’s a little bit different than everyone else because you’re really just thinking about him right now. You want to make sure he’s happy and wants to continue playing.

“You look at how well he’s playing so we’ll work forward and hopefully get something done.

“We have a great relationship and I don’t want to pressure him in any way.”

Conroy insists his new trend of acquiring Russians is strictly a coincidence.

“The one thing is, I tell the scouts, ‘identify the players’ and for whatever reason the Russians are ones we identified,” laughed Conroy, whose focus has revolved largely around rebuilding his blue line, which is where Daniil Miromanov will debut for the Flames Saturday in Sunrise alongside Kylington.

“We brought in different style guys.

“Moving forward we have a lot of young defence and that’s great. Hopefully they develop together.”

So now, after tackling the monumental task of reconfiguring his club, he can sit back and watch how it all starts to come together on the ice.

That is, after he catches up on some sleep, and his Russian.