The Calgary Flames Strike Again, Sign Free Agent Nazem Kadri To 7-Year, $49-Million Deal

It took about a month longer than expected, but marquee free agent forward Nazem Kadri is finally off the market.

On Thursday, the Calgary Flames announced that they had signed the 31-year-old center to a seven-year contract. The deal carries an average annual value of $7 million per season, for a total value of $49 million.

“We’re excited to welcome Naz,” general manager Brad Treliving told the media in a videoconference on Thursday. “A recent winner of the Stanley Cup. Put him with the current centermen that we do have, we think that that becomes a formidable group.”

Treliving confirmed that he had been trying to acquire Kadri for years. When the London, Ontario native was dealt from the Toronto Maple Leafs to the Colorado Avalanche in 2019, it was widely rumored that the Flames had come to terms with the Leafs on a deal, but Kadri blocked it through his 10-team no-trade clause.

He then flourished on a very good roster in Colorado. Last season, he hit a career high with 87 regular-season points, then added another 15 points in 16 playoff games as the Avalanche captured the Stanley Cup.

“He’s got a unique combination of skill and snarl, and he plays a premier position at center ice,” said Treliving, about why he pursued Kadri.

And while he spurned the Flames three years ago, Kadri sees things in a different light this time around. Though he had other suitors, it has proven to be difficult for many clubs to free up enough salary-cap space to make a play for the big-ticket free agents. And the Flames have a well-constructed roster which should be among the best in the league next season.

“I love the city of Calgary,” Kadri told Flames TV on Thursday,when asked why he signed on. “Obviously, I like the direction of the team and the moves we’ve made thus far, and I think it’s been a great rebound. And I’ve always appreciated the Calgary Flames fanbase.”

The “rebound,” of course, is the work that Treliving has already accomplished this summer.

The Flames looked like the NHL’s biggest losers on Day 1 of free agency when star forward Johnny Gaudreau spurned their big-money offer to sign with the Columbus Blue Jackets. A few days later, the outlook became even bleaker when another young star, Matthew Tkachuk, informed the club that he wouldn’t be re-signing when he hit unrestricted free agency in one year’s time.

Then, Treliving started pulling rabbits out of his hat. Though he was being forced to explore the trade market for Tkachuk, he extracted good value when he sent the 24-year-old to the Florida Panthers in return for a package that included star winger Jonathan Huberdeau, steady defenseman MacKenzie Weegar and a first-round pick in the 2025 draft.

Huberdeau and Weegar each had just one year remaining on their current contracts, making the solution seem short term. Yet within two weeks, Treliving had flown to Huberdeau’s offseason home base in Montreal to meet with his new winger face to face. On June 4, last season’s assists leader and second-highest scorer inked an eight-year contract extension worth $84 million, which will carry him through age 37.

Just like that, Calgary had re-established itself as a desirable destination. Kadri could look at the roster and see another top forward that would be locked up beyond the duration of his own contract. And the Flames also boast the 2022 coach of the year in Darryl Sutter, Vezina Trophy runner-up Jacob Markstrom in net, one of the deepest defense groups in the NHL and a pair of strong incumbent two-way centers in Mikael Backlund and Elias Lindholm, who finished second last season in Selke Trophy voting.

One member of the center group will be missing, however. In order to clear salary-cap space to sign Kadri, Treliving traded pivot Sean Monahan to the Montreal Canadiens on Thursday.

Selected sixth overall by the Flames in 2013, Monahan jumped straight into the NHL as an 18-year-old. He peaked in the 2018-19 season with 34 goals and 82 points, but has endured a long list of injuries and health issues through his career. Last April, he was shut down to undergo hip surgery.

Monahan turns 28 in October. He has one year remaining on a seven-year contract that carries a cap hit of $6.375 million.

“Sean’s doing well, it’s probably the best he’s felt in some time, and I’m happy for him,” Treliving said. “The kid means a lot to me. I’ve been around him a long time. You’re not going to find many better kids than him.

“This kid played through a lot of things a lot of people didn’t play through, and he wouldn’t say a whole lot. A lot of times, you didn’t know what was going on — he’d just go out there and play. It shows you the type of kid he is, so I hope he continues on and plays well for Montreal. They got a great kid.”

To persuade the Canadiens to acquire the final year of Monahan’s contract, the Flames added a conditional 2025 first-round draft pick to the trade. It’s not unusual for teams to include a “lottery protection” clause when they trade a first-rounder, trying to buy themselves insurance to retain the pick if it ends up falling in, say, the top 10.

Treliving and his counterpart, Montreal GM Kent Hughes, took the conditions to new levels, outlining multiple potential scenarios.

“We’re trying to give up the worst pick we can. They’re trying to get the best pick they can,” Treliving explained with a chuckle. “So there’s just a ton of profanity back and forth and then you keep putting in different layers. That sort of sums it up.”

After they missed the playoffs in 2020-21, Calgary bounced back with 111 points last season, first in the Pacific Division. They were third overall in goals against, sixth in goals for and had the sixth-best penalty kill and 10th-best power play — but were left disappointed when they were eliminated by their archrivals, the Edmonton Oilers, in the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

And while Treliving is in the midst of one of the most dramatic NHL offseasons for a general manager in recent memory, he admitted on Thursday that he’d been doing a lot of improvising along the way.

“We weren’t being real aggressive going into free agency,” he said. “We were leaving space to sign our own players.

“When that changed, then obviously, we changed.”