Nazem Kadri may have been available on the free agent market for six weeks before finally signing with the Calgary Flames, but it’s not like he hasn’t had offers during that time. .
Our colleague Pierre LeBrun wrote on the site on Wednesday The Athletic that Kadri “turned down a six-year offer from another club worth $8.5 million a year soon after the free agent market opened”.
LeBrun adds that Kadri made his decision based on which team he felt best with. The 31-year-old center eventually joined the Flames on a seven-year, $49 million deal that will earn him $7 million a year.
Kadri was part of a major roster shake-up for the Flames, which lost Johnny Gaudreau to the free agent market and traded Matthew Tkachuk to the Florida Panthers for Jonathan Huberdeau and MacKenzie Weegar.
“I contacted Darren Ferris, Kadri’s agent, when the free agent market opened to tell him that we were definitely interested, but we had a lot to do,” the Flames general manager said. Brad Treliving to LeBrun. “And at that time, we hadn’t yet resolved Matthew’s situation.
“It just turned out that he was still available.”
Ferris said Kadri hesitated between three teams. According to LeBrun, the New York Islanders were one of them. Kadri probably waited until the end of the offseason to see if general manager Lou Lamoriello could make room for him.
The London, Ont., native scored 28 goals and had 87 points in 71 games with the Colorado Avalanche last season. He added 7 goals and 15 points in 16 playoff games en route to winning his first Stanley Cup in June.
Drafted seventh overall in the 2009 NHL Entry Draft by the Toronto Maple Leafs, Kadri has scored 219 goals and 512 points in 739 career games with the Leafs and Avalanche.
The future of the Flames
Two weeks before signing Kadri, Treliving and the Flames offered Huberdeau an eight-year, $84 million contract extension, which begins in 2023-24.
The two offseason additions will eat up $17.5 million of the team’s payroll starting next season, until Kadri’s contract expires in 2029. Only three members of the squad are under contract until the 2025-2026 season; Blake Coleman ($4.9M), Rasmus Andersson ($4.55M) and Jacob Markstrom ($6M). Coleman’s contract expires in 2026-27.
Calgary already has $73.4 million committed on its payroll for next season according to the specialized site CapFriendly, with 16 players under contract and only three who can become free agents without compensation: Weegar, Milan Lucic and Trevor Lewis.
Treliving told LeBrun that his next thing to deal with is getting a deal with Weegar.
“That’s our intention with him. We are working on it.”
