Kadri

[Brewin Flames]

Kadri’s growth gives Avalanche a mature, sandpaper sniper for Cup run

Mark Spector@sportsnetspecAugust 19, 2020, 10:47 PM

 

EDMONTON — He has always been a high event player, Nazem Kadri. On the ice, on the town, or sometimes when it counted the most, up in the press box.

 

Whether that meant getting suspended in each of his last two playoff appearances as a Toronto Maple Leaf, or sitting near the top of National Hockey League in playoff scoring as he does today, Kadri and the term “under the radar” go together like peanut butter and pickles.

 

Today, as the Colorado Avalanche settle into the bubble awaiting their Round 2 opponent, Kadri can say he has won an NHL playoff series. Finally.

 

“The smile says it all,” he said after notching two goals in a 7-1 banishment of the Arizona Coyotes, a team that found itself falling further and further away from the slick, well-rounded Avalanche as the series went on.

 

Kadri scored the first and third goals in the deciding game — he has 6-5-11 in eight post-season games — for a team that has watched him transform into so many different things since his arrival by trade on July 1, 2019.

 

In Denver he is a powerplay specialist, where he has scored five of his six playoff goals. He is a veteran leader, a discipline issue in Toronto now viewed as a rock in the Rockies.

 

Back in Leafs land he is one thing and one thing only: GM Kyle Dubas’ biggest mistake.

 

“I talked to Naz when he first came to us, about his history in Toronto. Some of the penalties, his reputation,” began Colorado head coach Jared Bednar. “He stated right away that he had made some mistakes there, that he was past that, over it, and it wouldn’t be a problem.”

 

Bednar was ready to accept some maturation from Kadri. He was hoping for it.

 

What he didn’t want was some sanitized version of the player GM Joe Sakic has so shrewdly traded for. He didn’t want Nazem Kadri Lite.

 

“I said, ‘Hey, listen: I want to you to play your game, be physical, toe the line and be highly competitive. I just don’t want you in the box all the time,’” Bednar said. “He assured me it wouldn’t be an issue, and it hasn’t been.”

 

A year spent as a prominent player in Toronto is like seven years in Anaheim, Florida, or Dallas. It’s hockey’s version of dog years, even in Denver where the Avs fight with a myriad of pro and college teams to get above the fold, yesterday’s version of being high on the home page.

 

“Just reflecting on the time I spent in Toronto, looking back, you want to learn from your mistakes,” Kadri said. “Just trying to mature as a person, as a player, as a teammate. I think I’m more valuable on the ice than I am in the penalty box or the press box.

 

“Just trying to stay calm out there, and composed. I think that staying in games would do that.”

 

He is more than aware of the stories he has authored, whether it was cross-checking Jake DeBrusk in the head, or flying through the air in a decapitation mission against Tommy Wingels.

 

His track record with the NHL’s Department of Player Safety is longer than a Bo Bichette blast, his ill-conceived trade a Toronto pub conversation that lasts more rounds than Chuck Wepner.

 

This summer, as a Leafs team that lacked grit and scoring bows out once again, Bednar sees a sandpaper sniper near the top of the playoff scoring race. A road map for an Avalanche team that could never find that emotional line that Kadri has crossed so often.

 

“Guys see him as a bit of an elder statesman, a guy who’s been around a little more than the bulk of our team,” Bednar said. “Some of the decisions he made in Toronto, it’s just a maturity thing.

 

He’s been through that, and it’s not going to be tougher for him (here). It will be easier for him in Denver.

“He’s a real focused player right now. He wants to prove he can get it done at this time of year. He was a difference-maker for us in this series.”

 

Of course, Kadri was supposed to be that guy years ago. Specifically, in March of 2015, when we happened to be in Calgary on the day Brendan Shanahan made Kadri face the media after the Leafs President had extended a team-imposed suspension from one game to three.

 

No one said why, only that he’d missed a Sunday practice after a Saturday night loss. There had to be more. There was always more with Kadri.

 

“Of course I’m embarrassed about it,” Kadri said that day, a very public shaming at the young age of 24. “It’s a lesson learned, and that’s how I’m going to approach it.

 

I am a little bit humiliated, but … it’s something you can look to as far as making yourself a better person. It’s a lesson that couldn’t be more clear.

 

“I put the blame on myself.”