The one major domino left to fall in the 2022 NHL offseason was where unrestricted free agent Nazem Kadri would land. There were lots of rumours that he would be going to play for the New York Islanders, but that is not the team that signed him. It ended up being the team that yours truly was speculating ever since the Matthew Tkachuk trade:

**Breaking News** 🚨 📰
I'm told the ⁦@NHLFlames⁩ are working on a potential deal to move C Sean Monahan, and… The ⁦@NHLFlames⁩ are signing UFA C Nazem Kadri. ⁦@espn⁩ ⁦@NHLNetwork⁩ @NHL #HockeyTwitter pic.twitter.com/yvUZ36YJXX

— Kevin Weekes (@KevinWeekes) August 18, 2022

Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet would go on to say that Kadri's contract was for seven years with a $7M cap hit per season.

Things didn't stop there for Calgary as they would need to move out some money to make it all work. Sean Monahan was reported as being traded to Montreal, along with a sweetener. Those details still weren't confirmed at time of writing so that will be covered in a separate article. For now, we'll assume Monahan is no longer a Calgary Flame but leave it at that.

Let's break it down.

What Calgary Gets

Kadri had a career season at the age of 31 last year with Colorado, posting 87 points in 71 games. That point/game mark tied with teammate Mikko Rantanen for 14^th in the league. That offensive burst is especially impressive considering he had just 68 points in his first 107 games as a member of the Avalanche. He also had never passed 61 points in a season until 2021-22. It was a superlative season for him but when a player performs so far above what they've traditionally done, at his age, we need to look for red flags.

The first one is a career-high in secondary assist rate at 5-on-5. He had one season in his career over 0.5 second assists/60 minutes and it was in 2016-17 with Toronto. His mark of 0.62 put him inside the 88^th percentile of regular forwards by this mark. Not that this will crash, but he could lose a handful of points through secondary helper regression alone.

The new Flames centre also posted a nine-year high in individual points percentage (IPP), or the rate at which he garners a point when his team scores a goal at 5-on-5. He was at 80% in 2021-22, surpassing 78% in 2018-19 and 76% in 2016-17. Even just a small tick down to 75% could cost him a few more points via regression.

Finally, there's the power-play production. He had 29 PPPs in 71 games as the team scored a massive 11.2 goals/60 when Kadri and Cale Makar were on the ice for the man advantage. He had just 20 PPPs in his first 107 games with Colorado. He will be going to a Calgary team that had a good-not-great power play and lost a couple significant pieces (though he and Jonathan Huberdeau are excellent replacements).

It was the assists that gave him such a monster point total. His rate of 2.59 per 60 minutes at all strengths dwarfs the highest from his last nine seasons of 1.42 in 2018-19. That's what will happen when you play for a team that is great at scoring both at 5-on-5 and on the power play. With that said, it isn't as if he were a passenger that got lucky. This was a guy who performed as an elite offensive force in the league by many metrics. When looking at the tracking data from Corey Sznajder, Kadri was elite in several areas like shot rate, shot assist rate (passes leading to shots), scoring chance contributions, playing off the rush, controlled zone entries, and more:

Creating so many opportunities for himself and his teammates, particularly off the rush, is a big reason why Kadri had the season he did. A lot of things had to go right, but let's not diminish his performance. He was great-to-elite in all phases of offensive play.

It also isn't a complete aberration. From the same data set, he had similarly strong shot rates, being in the 85^th percentile of scoring chance contributions, and even higher by controlled zone entries for the COVID 2021 campaign. He has long been excellent at playing with possession and that just led to the season he finally dreamed of having. That he saw such a big jump in TOI – he added over 2 minutes and 30 seconds per game over his three-year average – brought this all together for the huge season he had.

The first question is how long this elite offensive play lasts. He turns 32 years old in October and there are always questions about how a player will age. Seeing as this might be his peak, there's no reason to think there's an imminent crash coming. There will likely be a slow decline but we do have to mention he really hasn't played a ton of hockey for his age. Including playoffs, he has fewer than 800 NHL games played. Tyler Seguin, by comparison, is a year younger and has played over 900 games. Nicklas Backstrom had over 1000 total NHL games played through his age-31 season. The age is always something that will stick out but there aren't as many miles on Kadri's body as some other top-end talents at this age. He also stopped throwing his body around as much, posting 149 hits in 178 regular season games with Colorado. He had a single season with 148 back in Toronto, so he's hopefully not as banged up as he otherwise could be at this age. There are reasons to believe he may age better than some others.

The second question is his role. Kadri skating 19:14 a game for Colorado was one reason for his high raw point totals. The only Calgary forward that played over 19 minutes a night in 2021-22 was Elias Lindholm, the team's top centre. If he's closer to 18 minutes a game, we could shave another 5-6 points off his total from last year through loss of TOI alone. With secondary assist regression and a drop in IPP, he could lose 10-15 points from his 2021-22 total just through a bit of normalization in some underlying stats. He could perform the exact same he did last year and drop nearly 0.2 points per game.

The newest Calgary pivot will assuredly start on the second line, likely with a winger pair like Andrew Mangiapane and Blake Coleman. Both are excellent two-way wingers and both could benefit a lot from Kadri's playmaking abilities. At this point, Kadri is a far superior offensive centre than Calgary's former 2C in Mikael Backlund. That gives Mangiapane a scoring centre, which could help his meagre assist totals, and be a boon to his fantasy profile. On the flipside, though, Mangiapane may be shoved off the top PP unit now. They have Kadri, Jonathan Huberdeau, Elias Lindholm, and Rasmus Andersson. It leaves room for one forward and it'll come down to Mangiapane or Tyler Toffoli.

As for the power play, it’s not certain how this all shakes out. Gaudreau's spot can be replaced by Huberdeau and Tkachuk with Kadri. If Kadri and Lindholm are the two forwards playing down the middle of the power play, well, that is where Mangiapane usually plays. Toffoli took a lot of shots from the right circle so, for now, I'm assuming Toffoli remains on the power play with Mangiapane on the second unit. For that reason, the 35-goal scorer may have upgraded at 5-on-5 but his power-play upside is in peril.

This also moves Backlund down to the third line, which is probably a good thing considering his age and the team's lack of depth. Not that it's awful depth, but going from Mangiapane/Coleman on the second line to something like Lewis/Dubé or Lucic/Dubé on the third line is a big decline. Backlund skating there should give the team another checking line option that can give their big stars some easier deployment.

It also doesn't give much room to young centres to crack the roster. Guys like Adam Ruzicka and Connor Zary are going to have a huge hill to climb now with all four centre slots (assuming Kevin Rooney is the 4C) being occupied by proven NHLers. Luckily for the Flames, their top prospects in Matthew Coronato and Jakob Pelletier are both wingers. Once they're ready (and under contract, in Coronato’s case), there'll be room for them at least on the third line.

Kadri gives the Flames a great 2C to play behind Lindholm, will help the team on the power play, and should still be great for a couple years at least. It'll help their top guys but forwards like Mangiapane and Backlund are status quo from last year, if not hurt a bit.

As for Colorado, they have work to do now. They have no immediate replacement for Kadri and while it should be Alex Newhook eventually, he's not ready for that role right now. It could be J.T. Compher, but I have been musing all offseason that Mikko Rantanen could end up the 2C. Maybe the Avalanche have another move coming, so for now, we'll have to hold steady on what the Colorado lineup will look like.

Who This Helps

Blake Coleman

The Calgary Power Play

J.T. Compher

Dillon Dubé

Who This Hurts

Mikael Backlund

Connor Zary

Nazem Kadri

Artturi Lehkonen

Valeri Nichushkin