Nazem Kadri ready to lift his non-movement clause to leave Calgary

A lot of water has flowed under the bridge in the old Saddledome in Calgary over the past two years.

In 2021-22, the Flames were eliminated in the second round by their Alberta foes (Oilers), and then the team’s management decided to go in a completely different direction. In fact, the willingness of some of the big guns to leave the City of Calgary had quite an impact on the picture…

Johnny Gaudreau signed in Ohio…

Matthew Tkachuk was traded to Florida…

And Jonathan Huberdeau joined (with MacKenzie Weegar). Nazem Kadri has also agreed to join the Flames!

Since then, nothing has gone right in Calgary. The team missed the playoffs in 2023 and 2024, Darryl Sutter was replaced by Ryan Huska, Craig Conroy was preferred to Brad Treliving and other players left the organization: Elias Lindholm, Jacob Markstrom, Chris Tanev and so on. In short, things are going badly at shop Calgary.

It’s not just Jonathan Huberdeau who must sometimes wonder why he agreed to sign a multi-season contract with the Flames in the summer of 2022; Nazem Kadri, who accepted $49 million over seven years, must sometimes think that perhaps he should have accepted less money to play in a winning city.

Kadri had struggled when he played a central role in Toronto, a Canadian city…

He found his way back to success in Denver, behind mega-stars with indisputable leadership and in a slightly less intense market…

Then he went to accept a leading role for a Canadian team once again. Go figure!

The Flames are likely to rebuild over the next few years, and neither Huberdeau nor Kadri will be tripping over the project. Huberdeau is untradeable and he’ll have to get used to it… but in Kadri’s case, there could be interest somewhere. The Ontario forward has just collected 75 points in 82 games.

But he’ll be 34 when the 2024-25 season begins, and he’s under contract for another five full seasons. That still complicates things.

Damn, he’s giving himself some bad contracts on July 1…

On June 28, David Pagnotta(The 4th Period) mentioned that the Flames were exploring the possibility of trading Kadri across the NHL.

Nothing is imminent, and he has a full NMC, but word out there suggests the #Flames are exploring trade market on Nazem Kadri.

– David Pagnotta (@TheFourthPeriod) June 28, 2024

This weekend, he went even further:

“From what I understand, he (Kadri) is ready to lift his non-movement clause if the opportunity is right in his eyes. I think he would agree to return to Colorado.” –David Pagnotta

The problem, Nazem, is that the Avalanche have less than $5 million in salary cap space… and still have to juggle the uncertainty surrounding Valeri Nichushkin and Gabriel Landeskog in Denver.

Nazem Kadri was a member of the Avs. He was happy there.

And now he’s decided to leave the organization for a few million dollars more. It’s too late!

When you’re good at something, leaving for more money isn’t always the right decision. I know all about that…

Huberdeau and Kadri are therefore condemned to surround the (few) young hopefuls of a rebuilding team, rather than play on the first two trios of a team aspiring to great honors. That’s it.

But hey, they’re (and will be) superbly paid to play that role. We won’t cry for them. #CryMeARiver #KadriARiver