{"id":519175,"date":"2026-03-06T23:37:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T23:37:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/519175\/"},"modified":"2026-03-06T23:37:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T23:37:08","slug":"avalanche-acquire-nazem-kadri-pro-hockey-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/519175\/","title":{"rendered":"Avalanche Acquire Nazem Kadri \u2013 Pro Hockey Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

An hour after the deadline, one of the top names finally comes off the board. The Flames have agreed to send Nazem Kadri<\/a> and their 2027 fourth-round pick back to Colorado for a reunion with the Avalanche, with whom he won the Stanley Cup in 2022, per Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet<\/a>. The Avs\u2019 2028 first-round pick, a 2027 second-round pick, winger Victor Olofsson<\/a>, and the signing rights to forward prospect Max Curran<\/a> are going to Calgary. Both draft picks have conditions attached. Nick Kypreos of Sportsnet<\/a> adds that the Flames are retaining 20% of his salary to bring his cap hit down from $7MM to $5.6MM for the Avs. The trade is now official.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The idea of the Avalanche bringing Kadri back into the fold first surfaced last week in a report from David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period<\/a>. Kadri, armed with a 13-team no-trade list, told TSN today that Colorado was \u201cthe team at the very top of my list\u201d and was \u201cfor the most part\u201d only interested in returning to Denver if he didn\u2019t stay with the Flames (via Aarif Deen of Colorado Hockey Now<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Momentum toward a deal seemed to cease when Colorado traded<\/a> a first-round and a fifth-round pick to the Maple Leafs yesterday for\u00a0Nicolas Roy<\/a>. Not only did Roy swallow up $3MM in cap space, but they traded away their top 2027 draft pick that most assumed would have to be included in any potential deal for Kadri. They\u2019d traded away their 2026 selection at last year\u2019s deadline for Brock Nelson<\/a>. They now have no first-round choice until 2029 and haven\u2019t drafted in the first round since taking\u00a0Calum Ritchie<\/a> (also traded for Nelson) 27th overall and\u00a0Mikhail Gulyayev<\/a>\u00a031st overall in 2023.<\/p>\n

The Avalanche never wanted to lose Kadri after his career year in 2021-22 fueled them to a Stanley Cup. The post-COVID flat cap environment simply made matching Kadri\u2019s open market value impossible, though, and at age 31, he was never going to have a better opportunity to cash in on a long-term deal. Colorado had fits trying to replace him as their #2 center behind Nathan MacKinnon<\/a>, rotating through lower-cost or younger names like Alex Newhook<\/a>,\u00a0Ryan Johansen<\/a>, and\u00a0Casey Mittelstadt<\/a> until finally addressing the hole in a meaningful way by splurging for\u00a0Brock Nelson<\/a>\u00a0from the Islanders at last year\u2019s deadline.<\/p>\n

Nelson has flourished this season, racking up 30 goals and 52 points in 60 games while playing over 19 minutes per night. Nelson could shift to the wing to make room for Kadri down the middle in the top six \u2013 he did spend some time on\u00a0John Tavares<\/a>\u2018 flank early in his career in New York. In any event, the Avs have an excess of options down the middle with Roy, Ross Colton<\/a>,\u00a0Jack Drury<\/a>, and\u00a0Parker Kelly<\/a> all able to comfortably hold things down on the third or fourth lines. If Colorado really wants to spread the wealth, it could slot in Kadri on the third line down the middle behind Nelson and look to get him extra ice time on the top power play unit to maximize his value.<\/p>\n

Kadri, 35, owns a 12-29\u201341 scoring line in 61 games this year for the Flames that\u2019s relatively uninspiring given his recent track record. He didn\u2019t make an overwhelming first impression in Calgary with 56 points in 2022-23, but he followed that up with a 75-point year in 2023-24 and then a career-high 35 goals last season.<\/p>\n

Kadri\u2019s age and term remaining will be something of a concern, seeing as he\u2019s now on the Avs\u2019 books through 2028-29. It\u2019s important to consider that Kadri didn\u2019t miss a single game due to injury over his three-plus years in Calgary and last landed out of the lineup when he fractured his right thumb in the 2022 Final with the Avs. Even then, he hasn\u2019t missed double-digit games in a season due to injury since before the pandemic.<\/p>\n

Whatever concerns the Avs may have about Kadri\u2019s production this year certainly weren\u2019t enough to stop them from reacquiring him, plus an ugly 6.9% shooting clip should turn around in short order and help him get hot for Colorado down the stretch. A two-time All-Star, he\u2019s played the least for the Avs out of his three NHL stops but reached the playoffs each time.<\/p>\n

In contrast, no team has more premier draft picks in the next few years than the Flames. They already had an impressive stable before the deal, but now own a pair of first-round picks each in 2026, 2027, and 2028 and have eight second-rounders over the next three years as well.<\/p>\n

They\u2019ll take a bit of money back in the deal in the form of Olofsson, a pending UFA at a cap hit of $1.575MM. A strong finish to the year could result in an extension if he\u2019s open to staying in Calgary; they\u2019ll need to retain a few veteran bodies to fill out their forward group next season. He ended up being a shrewd depth pickup for the Avs last summer, scoring 11 goals and 25 points in 60 games, but became a redundant luxury they couldn\u2019t afford after adding Kadri and Roy into the mix.<\/p>\n

Curran won\u2019t make a huge splash in Calgary\u2019s already excessive prospect pool but is a nice get nonetheless. The 6\u20193\u2033 center is still 19 years old and was a fifth-round pick by Colorado in 2024. Ranked as their #7 prospect entering the season by Steven Ellis of Daily Faceoff<\/a>, he\u2019s produced over a point per game over his last two seasons in the WHL and has committed to UMass for the fall before potentially turning pro in 2027-28.<\/p>\n

Flames general manager Craig Conroy told reporters that the condition on the 2028 first is tied to the condition attached to the 2027 first they sent to Toronto in the Roy deal. That pick was top-10 protected, so in the unlikely event it falls in that range and defers to 2028, the Flames would then receive Colorado\u2019s 2029 first unprotected. The 2027 pick they receive is the better of the Avs\u2019 or Wild\u2019s second-rounder (via Pat Steinberg of Sportsnet 960<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Image courtesy of Geoff Burke-Imagn Images.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An hour after the deadline, one of the top names finally comes off the board. The Flames have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":519176,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,762,48,758,188572,8463,4247,448,82,4584,2366],"class_list":["post-519175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-calgary-flames","tag-canada","tag-colorado-avalanche","tag-max-curran","tag-nazem-kadri","tag-newsstand","tag-nhl","tag-sports","tag-transactions","tag-victor-olofsson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=519175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519175\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/519176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=519175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=519175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=519175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}