The Colorado Avalanche shook up the NHL on Friday afternoon, with the addition of Nazem Kadri via a trade with the Calgary Flames just moments before the trade deadline was set to expire. In fact, news of the trade wasn’t even announced until well-past the clock hit 3pm ET.
The Avalanche played the Dallas Stars on Friday night in Dallas. Kadri couldn’t make that trip so fast, so he is meeting with the team today in Denver. One of his teammates during his first stint with the Avalanche, Nathan MacKinnon, provided some insight towards how he felt upon hearing the news and what Kadri could bring to the Avalanche.
Nathan MacKinnon on Nazem Kadri's return...
— Evan Rawal (@evanrawal) March 7, 2026
"Pumped to have Naz back on our team. It's exciting for the fans, this organization, all of us in this room. We needed a little bit, I think, a little bit more game-breaking scoring punch we might have missed last year in the…
The Avs outscored the Stars 24-21 in that postseason series, but fell to Dallas in Game 7 by a score of 4-2. Mikko Rantanen had plenty to do with that, most notably in Game 7, when he put up a hat trick against his former team. Rantanen was a solid linemate of MacKinnon’s. Like most of MacKinnon’s linemates, The Moose played quite well for the Avs. He had 25 goals and 39 assists in 2024-25 before being traded to the Hurricanes in the deal that brought the Avs Martin Necas and Jack Drury.
In three seasons with the Avalanche, Kadri played in 178 games, recording 58 goals and 97 assists. He had 63 power play goals. Kadri also put up a faceoff percentage of 52.5%. In the NHL, with a heavy sample size, anything over 50% on the power play is considered good. Another bonus to Kadri’s game is that he’s recorded over 200 shots on goal in seven of his 16 true seasons in the NHL (excluding 2009-10, when he only played in one game.
With Brock Nelson manning the second-line center position, it makes sense if the Avalanche put Kadri as their 3C and bump Jack Drury down to 4C. The Avalanche, as Nestor Quixtan pointed out, now have the best center depth in all of the NHL. It’s an incredible time for Avs Nation. There are now no excuses for a failure of a season. They need to go and win the Stanley Cup, or else this season will turn out to be a failure.