Why Nazem Kadri once vetoed a trade to the Flames

Nazem Kadri is a member of the Calgary Flames, about three years after they first tried to acquire him.

Back in 2019, the writing was on the wall that Kadri would be gone from the Toronto Maple Leafs, then the only NHL team he’d ever known.

He’d found himself on the wrong end of suspensions in consecutive playoff runs, but was still just a year removed from back-to-back 32 goal seasons. The Flames were interested in Kadri, but he decided to exercise his no-move clause and blocked a deal from happening before his eventual move to the Colorado Avalanche.

“Yeah, I did, I came very close,” Kadri said about vetoing a trade to Calgary before facing the Flames back in 2019, as per Wes Gilbertson. “I just didn’t really get the impression that I was being shopped around [by the Maple Leafs] and my initial feeling was to stay in Toronto, and that’s kind of why that whole situation panned out the way it did. It was nothing against Calgary. I obviously love that city and I love going there as a visiting team, but I just had aspirations of staying put.”

Kadri had 161 goals, 196 assists in 561 games for the Maple Leafs in his career, before being shipped to the Avs in exchange for Alexander Kerfoot and Tyson Barrie.

“I never wanted to leave… Toronto was my home,” Kadri wrote in a Players’ Tribune article earlier this year. “I made my case to management that I wanted to be there. We had an exciting young core with Auston [Matthews], Mitch [Marner], Willy [Nylander], Morgan [Rielly] — a great, talented group. And I just wanted to be part of the team that finally won a Cup. That’s all I wanted. But it’s a business, and what happened in those 2019 playoffs against the Bruins made it tough.”

Clearly, the move worked out in Kadri’s favour the first time, as he won the Stanley Cup this past season.

Only time will tell how his new shiny $49 million extension over the next seven years will age for the 32-year-old forward and his new team.

You might also like:
• Flames could be giving up first-round pick in Monahan trade: report