Nazem Kadri takes a pot shot at the Leafs during recent interview about Flames' current troubles
It's been a pretty rough offseason for a number of NHL teams, most notably the Boston Bruins and Calgary Flames. While the Bruins have seen a number of major roster departures following a record-setting 135-point season, even they haven't experienced the wave of trade requests and that the Flames have dealt with over the last couple of months.
The Flames have already traded Tyler Toffoli to New Jersey following his trade request, but reports have also suggested that Noah Hanifin, Mikael Backlund and Elias Lindholm are among those who have also informed the team that they will not be re-signing in Calgary once their current contracts expire next summer. If you combine these issues with the Flames also losing Johnny Gaudreau and Matthew Tkachuk last summer, you'd be hard-pressed to find a team who has dealt with more challenges than the Flames over the last year and change.
With everything going on in Calgary right now, you can imagine that the temperature is high, especially following the departures of Treliving and ex-coach Darryl Sutter. Yes, they have a new GM in place in Craig Conroy and yes they have a new head coach in Ryan Huska, but there's still a lot of negative attention on the team right now.
Even with all of these issues, the Flames and ex-GM Brad Treliving were able to figure out ways to sign both Jonathan Huberdeau and MacKenzie Weegar to long-term extensions and lock up prized UFA forward Nazem Kadri to a 7-year contract. Kadri spoke with the media this week to discuss the state of the team. The first thing he did was take a bit of a pot shot at the Leafs.
It's clear that even after several years, Kadri still isn't ready to move on from how the Leafs handled his trade in 2019. Kadri also elaborated on why he believes the Flames will be fine moving forward, even if there are more subtractions from the roster. The approach from the 2022 Stanley Cup champion appears to be more about focusing on the things he can control, like training and preparation and letting go of the things he can't control, like finishing 2 points out of a playoff spot last season.
"I've got faith in Husk. I've talked to him several times one-on-one since the news broke. I really like where his head's at. I think he's a smart guy. He's got some coaching experience ... (is) familiar with the franchise and the players surrounding the organization, so that's a huge help to find somebody in house like that who already knows what's going on.
At the end of the day, defense is going to win you a championship, but it's a modern NHL offensive game that everyone has to adapt to, and I think he's going to look to be creative."
The Flames still stand a pretty decent chance of bringing in some interesting pieces in trades involving Hanifin, Backlund and Lindholm, if they do indeed deal them. However, if they choose to go the "own rental" route, a core that consists of Huberdeau, Kadri, Weegar, Lindholm, Hanifin and Backlund is still good enough to remain competitive.
