With his ice time below his season average and speculation abounding they don't see eye-to-eye, Kadri wants to turn the page
Calgary Flames center Nazem Kadri did his best to stickhandle around any controversy regarding his relationship with coach Darryl Sutter after Thursday’s morning skate in anticipation of facing the Vegas Golden Knights Thursday night.
Kadri, whose ice time has been well below his season average in the past handful of games, denied a rift with Sutter.
“It’s been fine. It’s been fine,” Kadri said. “Throughout an 82-game season you’re going to have rough patches and not everything is going to go your way through eight months of playing. It’s about how you bounce back and how you fight that adversity. That’s something I’ve been pretty good at throughout my career.”
Kadri has averaged 17:17 of ice time per game in his first year in Calgary, peaking with a 22:51 outing in mid-December. He was down to 12:35 in both games surrounding a 13:01 night at home against the Dallas Stars last Saturday, a game in which he lost a key face-off and didn’t play in overtime.
“The only thing a coach has got on a player now is ice time,” Sutter said. “So anybody who talks about that shouldn’t be talking about the coaches or a deep analysis, they should be looking at the performance of the player. It’s very simple.”
Sutter also made no bones about saying the onus is on the player to earn more time.
“One hundred percent, especially if it’s a veteran player,” he said.
That said, a productive and firing-on-all-cylinders Kadri is among the biggest keys to the Flames pulling off a miracle run to make the Stanley Cup playoffs, and it appears Sutter is still be trying to find the formula to re-ignite the club’s highest-paid forward.
Kadri, who has gone 16 games without scoring a goal and tallied only twice in 24 outings, skated on the third line with Dillon Dube and Nick Ritchie during the morning skate.
“The line last game gave us a really good boost, and they have to build on that game,” Sutter said.
Kadri, who appeared unsurprised about being asked about his situation, quickly wanted to move past any issue, at least for now.
“Honestly, it’s just about winning the next game,” he said. “That’s what we’ve got to focus on. I think there’s a lot of speculation that happens in Canadian markets. That’s understandable. For us, these games are huge and this is really all that matters.”
ICE CHIPS: Flames defenseman Chris Tanev won’t play, but Sutter wouldn’t divulge his status, whether it’s a long-term issue or simply day-to-day. “Because we travelled yesterday, he’ll spend some time getting looked at today,” he said. … Jacob Markstrom is scheduled to start in goal for Calgary. The Golden Knights are to counter with Calgary product Logan Thompson, who will see his first action since Feb. 9. … Vegas forward Nicolas Roy is also back in the lineup.