The Toronto Maple Leafs suffered a huge blow last night in their game against the red hot St. Louis Blues.
In the first period, Toronto Maple Leafs third line centre (who is a first line centre on half the teams in the NHL) Nazem Kadri was hit hard and suffered a concussion.
He returned to the game briefly, but then left for good and did not come back.
Hopefully he is fine, because a long term loss of Kadri would be a catastrophic disaster for the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Nazem Kadri
Kadri was one of just eight centres in the NHL to score over 30 goals in the last two years (Auston Matthews and John Tavares also make the list) and he is intrinsic to the Leafs success.
Originally drafted by Brian Burke (who despite his awful ramblings on TV lately, contributed in large part to this roster and doesn’t get nearly enough credit for that) 7th overall in 2009, it’s fair to say that Kadri is one of the best homegrown players in Leafs history.
While it took him a while to get going, (originally, when I started writing, my being Pro-Kadri was one of the first things that got commenters yelling at me, as back in the early years he was about ten times as unpopular than Jake Gardiner) Kadri has become a top flight scorer and a fairly good defensive centre (perhaps overrated as a “shutdown” guy, but half way decent at it).
For the last two years Kadri was the Leafs go-to defensive centre, although now that they have two elite #1 all-star centres, he doesn’t really need to fill that role anymore because its up to other teams to shut-down the Leafs.
Regardless, Kadri’s role on the team is a big one. As the third line centre behind Matthews and Tavares, he is able to crush other team’s third lines in a matchup that isn’t even fair.
This year, Kadri’s 15 goals and 35 points are well off the 32/55 he put up last year, but his play has not declined much, if at all. As his 53% possession rating shows, Kadri is able to dominate the opposition on a regular basis. His on-ice shooting percentage (the percentage of shots that end up goals of every player who has been on the ice with Kadri this season) is a measly 7% which is unlucky, although not that far off where he was last year.
It is the worst on the team (only Nylander is even close) and while that is sapping his production, Kadri is also getting a minute less ice time per night (5v5) and Tavares , Marner, Matthews and Rielly make him an afterthought on the power-play. He is also second in the NHL in goal posts hit.
The last time I heard – and I can’t find where it’s tracked – is that he had hit nine posts. That’s insane.
That’s quite a few factors that have contributed to his statistical reduction, but the biggest factor is quite clearly his line mates. Kadri has spent the most time this year playing with Patrick Marleau and Connor Brown. Marleau has nine goals (5v5) and Brown has three. You can’t exactly get a ton of assists when you’re playing with guys producing at fourth line levels.
The last time I heard – and I can’t find where it’s tracked – is that he had hit nine posts. That’s insane. I think that any talk about Kadri declining, or not playing as well as he did a year ago is wrong. I think he’s a great player who has played great this year and isn’t being rewarded for it.
Anyways, here’s hoping Kadri isn’t out long.