Nazem Kadri Continues to Make Toronto Maple Leafs Fan Miss Him

Although he’s done a ton of tremendous things as Toronto Maple Leafs general manager, the Nazem Kadri trade will always haunt Kyle Dubas.

Before we talk about his time with the Toronto Maple Leafs, the racism that Kadri and his family has had to occur this week is disgusting and there’s no place in this world for this. I know this has been an unfortunate theme in his career, so It made me incredibly happy to see Kadri score a hat-trick after those hurtful comments were said to him and his family.

Hopefully his play on the ice can shut-up all of his hater’s off the ice, especially those who have cyber-bullying his family.

Anyway, the Kadri trade of three years ago was never a popular choice, but at the time, it did seem justified,  due to following on the heels of two straight playoff suspensions.

John Tavares had just signed a big-ticket with the Leafs and Kadri was forced into playing more of a third-line  role, instead of an offensive weapon in the top-six. Kadri had some stellar nights, especially the game where he shutdown Connor McDavid, but the limited ice-time really hurt his offensive output with the team.

During his last campaign in Toronto, Kadri scored 16 goals and registered 44 points, which was his lowest goal-total in seven seasons. His ice-time dipped and so did his power-play time, which really hurt his offensive abilities, so it wasn’t really his fault that his numbers went down.

Kadri went from scoring 12 power-play goals to four, so it’s pretty easy to blame Mike Babcock for that one.

The Toronto Maple Leafs Trading Nazem Kadri Was a Huge Mistake

Prior to the down-year, Kadri scored 32 goals in back-to-back seasons and was one of Toronto’s best players. Although the team wasn’t doing well, he was a bright spot and a fan-favorite in the city.

At $4.5M, you could argue that Kadri’s contract had a ton of value, but Toronto didn’t care. When Kadri was traded, he was coming off back-to-back seasons with playoff suspensions, but what were the chances that was going to happen again?

Okay, it literally happened again the next year when he received an eight-game suspension, bringing his total to 16 career playoff games suspended, but it couldn’t happen every year.

Kadri’s role is best suited in the top-six, so if he stayed in Toronto, he could have played wing, or pushed Tavares to the wing and played second-line centre, but wherever he’d play, he’d be the fourth/fifth best offensive player on the Leafs.

After finishing the 2021-22 season with 28 goals and 87 points, Kadri’s going to make a crazy amount of money in free agency, deservingly so. However, it’s been three (!!) seasons since Toronto traded him.

For the past three campaigns, the Leafs could have had Kadri at $4.5M and he could have made a huge impact when it mattered the most. When you think of playoff players, you think of someone like Kadri who can play a 200-foot game with an edge, but can also provide offense.

You don’t think of Alex Kerfoot, Ilya Mikheyev, David Kampf or even William Nylander in that sentence. Instead, you think of the player who was gifted to the Avalanche for essentially nothing.

Kadri could have been, and probably should have been, a Leaf for life, just like Morgan Rielly is. Speaking of which, if he was still on the team, he probably would’ve signed a hometown discount to stay, similar to Rielly, Jason Spezza and Mark Giordano.

But nope, Kadri’s now lightning it up in Colorado, helping the Avalanche (more than likely) towards a Conference Finals appearance and potentially a Stanley Cup.

Finding value contracts is supposed to be Dubas’ specialty, but instead, he let one of the best value contracts in professional hockey walk out the door just basically nothing because of some overblown suspensions.