If you checked on the Calgary Flames over at the stats page on nhl.com prior to heading down to the Scotiabank Saddledome to see the boys in red play, you might be a bit misled.
Nazem Kadri, who leads the Flames in points, won’t be in attendance. Calgary’s number one center was traded on Friday for winger Victor Olofsson and a package of futures that includes a conditional 2028 first round pick.
MacKenzie Weegar, who leads the Flames in time on ice at 1386:35 (and giveaways at 98 if that’s your cup of tea), was traded on Wednesday for Olli Määttä and another package of futures.
Rasmus Andersson, who is fourth in ice time still despite being traded on Jan. 19, certainly won’t be there. Traded for Zach Whitecloud and, of course, futures.
Perhaps Jonathan Huberdeau? Who is the highest paid Flame in history and is good for the odd highlight goal? He may be there in some capacity, but he won’t playing hockey until next fall. The 32 year old from St. Jerome, Quebec has been shut down for the year in order to get hip surgery.
Who does that leave? Who all is left?
That’s the fun part. Yes, some staples remain in captain Mikael Backlund, Blake Coleman, Morgan Frost, Joel Farabee, and Matthew Coronato; but now the lineup has truly been cracked open.
Who steps up and seizes Kadri’s vacated, team-leading 3:10 of power play time per game? Not only the time spent on the ice with the man advantage; who steps into Kadri’s oft-deployed trigger role on the umbrella formation?
Yan Kuznetsov is going to be killing a lot more penalties from now on. Rasmus Andersson (125:34) and Weegar (106:59) sit in third and fifth place in PK time played. Only Kevin Bahl has spent more time killing penalties at 156:23. That still leaves the right side of the ice vacated for Zach Whitecloud, Brayden Pachal, Zayne Parekh and Hunter Brzustewicz to battle over.
General manager Craig Conroy now ushers in a new era of Flames hockey.
With the Flames shipping out three core contributors, we are led to the next question:
Will the team get worse without their minute-munching veterans?
That’s a tricky one.
On one hand, the Flames have the second-worst record in the NHL already. Thursday’s 4-1 loss to the Ottawa Senators pulled their offence down to the bottom of the NHL at 2.43 goals for per game. Removing Calgary’s top scorer and most deployed defenceman in one week, theoretically, should see the team suffer a dip in quality of play.
On the other hand.
These stats are authored by the players putting them up.
The Flames had the worst offence in the league with MacKenzie Weegar and Nazem Kadri leading all defencemen and forwards in ice time respectively.
A Case for Kadri
Kadri is sixth on the team in goals and first on the team in shots. Just by virtue of being a volume shooter, so many plays lived and died on what Kadri did with the puck. Many times, that meant a dump-in followed by an extended grind to gain possession in the offensive zone, only to have all of that work frittered away by a muffin of a shot from #91.
Naz led the team in shots and was 17th on the team in shooting percentage at 6.9%.
He didn’t have a howitzer. Not even close. Only four of his team-leading 175 shots were above 80 miles per hour. 113 of his shots registered under below 70 miles per hour.
It’s a hard truth, but Kadri sat in the 97th percentile in the amount of shots he took and he was only four goals above the league average among all forwards at 8.8. His shooting percentage, 6.9%, was nearly half of the league average among forwards. 12.8%.
193:07 minutes on the power play and only two goals to show for it.
Fellow center Morgan Frost had only one less point than Kadri’s 13 power play points despite playing over 20 minutes less. 172:58 vs. 193:07 respectively.
First in power play minutes and fifth on the team in power play points per 60. 4.04.
Need we go on? Fine. If you say so. Nazem Kadri ranked below the 50th percentile in every speed burst-related category. His shooting metrics were well below league-wide efficiency.
Courtesy of NHL Edge, his only two player tracking related metrics that he registered above the 67th percentile was skating distance (96th) and shots on goal (97th). That is not an efficient offensive fulcrum for an NHL team to build their offence around.
Apologies to Naz, but the stats don’t lie. The Flames might actually produce more offence by spreading out deployment and adapting to a more flexible offensive strategy.
Goals Per 60: Flames Forwards
Blake Coleman: 0.94
Morgan Frost: 0.84
Matthew Coronato: 0.84
Yegor Sharangovich: 0.78
Joel Farabee: 0.76
Mikael Backlund: 0.72
Matvei Gridin: 0.70
Connor Zary: 0.69
Jonathan Huberdeau: 0.62
Nazem Kadri: 0.61
Looking Forward
To be fair, Kadri leaves the team as their leading scorer. He led the team in points per 60 (2.08) and secondary assists per 60 (0.71). The next highest forward in secondaries per 60 is Connor Zary at 0.56, so we’re looking at a team that focuses on lower percentage one-off, fetch-pass-shoot plays.
Kadri also does his best work while working under the radar. As Calgary’s only proverbial “big gun”, the 35 year old pivot was often focused on by opposing coaching groups. Playing second or third fiddle to Nathan MacKinnon has worked out in the past and the Avs also have Brock Nelson to lean on when needed.
There is also a chance that Ryan Strome simply picks up most of Nazem Kadri’s minutes for this season and next. It’s unlikely we see the offence do better if that ends up being the case.
No one can tell what the future holds, but we are in interesting times. If head coach Ryan Huska did have unspeakable non-public deployment commitments that Brad Treliving and the Flames organization made to two key veterans during the 2022 offseason; those would be off the table for the final 21 games of 2025-26.
The blue line is also now a free-for-all for ice time. Special teams are up for grabs too.
For the next month and a half, we’ll be watching an extended try-out for minutes and responsibility in the Post-Kadri Era.
Cheers, to inevitable change.
Statistics courtesy of Cap Wages, Natural Stat Trick, and the National Hockey League.
Keep Reading:
Flames Trade Nazem Kadri to Colorado Avalanche
Center Ryan Strome Acquired by Flames for 7th Round Pick
Would Arber Xhekaj be a Fit With the Flames? Deadline Rumors
MacKenzie Weegar Traded: Analyzing the Return
Do the Calgary Flames Have a Meritocracy Problem?
5 Post-Olympic Questions Surrounding the Calgary Flames
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