NHL
2026 NHL
Trade Deadline
The Avalanche crowd wasn't shy in letting Nazem Kadri know how happy Denver is to have him back. Isaiah J. Downing / Imagn Images
DENVER — The in-game entertainment staff at Ball Arena had an easy solution Sunday afternoon whenever they wanted to get fans excited. For the first time since Game 6 of the 2022 Stanley Cup Final, Nazem Kadri was wearing a Colorado Avalanche uniform. Any mention of his name over the public address system, any clip on the video board, and any action involving him on the ice was guaranteed to make the crowd explode.
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“I love the noise,” Kadri said in the aftermath of Colorado’s 3-2 shootout win against the Minnesota Wild.
That’s part of why the Avalanche re-acquired him Friday in a deadline deal with the Calgary Flames. When the moments are biggest, he’s unafraid. Eager to make an impact.
That led to some of the biggest moments in Avalanche history, most notably his overtime winner in Game 4 of the 2022 Stanley Cup Final, which he played 18 days after breaking his thumb. Nearly four years later, with Kadri back in the fold, the Avalanche have reason to believe they can reach similar heights.
“I’ve been here a short while and I think we’ve got what it takes,” the 35-year-old said.
Calgary signed Kadri after his career-best 2021-22 season, but the Flames did not make the playoffs during his three-and-a-half-year tenure with the club. Now he’s joining an Avalanche team atop the league standings: a group with star power, depth and players who have experienced deep postseason runs.
Getting re-acclimated to Colorado didn’t look like it would be an issue for Kadri on Sunday. Coach Jared Bednar played him more than 21 minutes in his return and immediately put him on the top power-play unit. He picked up an assist, and Colorado controlled 53.20 percent of the five-on-five expected goal share when he was on the ice, per Natural Stat Trick.
“Everyone who knows him knows he’s kind of got that little bit of swagger,” Cale Makar said. “With this group I think he’s just going to take us to a completely different level.”
That’s what he did the first time Colorado acquired him, back in a 2019 trade with Toronto. He had 34 points in 33 playoff games with the Avalanche, though he also had to serve an eight-game suspension in the 2021 playoffs for a hit on the St. Louis Blues’ Justin Faulk — the third postseason suspension of Kadri’s career. He hasn’t faced any supplemental discipline in the playoffs or regular season since.
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Kadri played almost exclusively up the middle during his first stint with Colorado, but the Avalanche have a wealth of centers after trading for Brock Nelson at the 2025 trade deadline and Nic Roy this month. So coach Jared Bednar, wanting Kadri to play with skilled players, slotted him in at wing. Kadri said it was his first time in years playing the position.
Kadri went through warmups on a line with Nelson and Ross Colton, but Bednar put him on the Nathan MacKinnon-led top line for the opening draw. That way the crowd could erupt when announcer Alan Roach read his name. The Denver fans responded as expected: Roach’s booming voice was hardly audible over the cheers.
Bednar liked how Kadri looked with MacKinnon and Martin Nečas on the first shift, so he kept him on the top line the entire game. With the score tied 0-0 in the second period, Kadri burst into the offensive zone on the forecheck and picked off a Quinn Hughes pass. In one sweeping motion he directed the puck to the middle of the ice, where MacKinnon ripped it into the net.
Instead of celebrating, MacKinnon turned toward Kadri and pointed. He grinned as he skated Kadri’s way, basking in an old connection rediscovered.
Two days before taking the ice in Denver, Kadri stood in the living room of his Calgary home, a putter in hand. He had been pacing all day, and now was practicing putts to calm his nerves. The 3 p.m. ET trade deadline had already passed, but deals were still trickling in.
Kadri’s wife, Ashley, was milling around the living room, on the phone with Kadri’s agent and refreshing X constantly. They had deadline coverage on their TV, waiting for any news to find out if Kadri was off to a contender or staying in Calgary.
Then, at 4 p.m. ET, 2 p.m. in Calgary — an hour after the deadline — Ashley gasped. A post from Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman had appeared on her phone.
“Oh my God!” she shouted, reading aloud. “Nazem Kadri back to the Colorado Avalanche!”
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As if on cue, Kadri’s phone rang with a call from Flames general manager Craig Conroy. He walked out of the room to answer, an excited bounce in his step.
“I think my head almost hit the ceiling,” Kadri said. “I was so excited.”
More than 1,600 miles away, in Kadri’s hometown of London, Ontario, his dad, Sam, was on the ice, playing in a men’s league hockey game. He had brought his phone to the bench — something he never does in normal circumstances — and checked between each of his shifts. Moments after the trade broke, Nazem and Ashley called him on FaceTime and told him the news.
“At first I’m thinking maybe it’s a joke,” he said. “But I could see the tears of joy in (Ashley’s) eyes and I knew it was for real.”
Despite his excitement, Nazem Kadri called the trade bittersweet. With the Avalanche in a salary cap crunch following their Stanley Cup win, the Flames gave him a seven-year, $49 million deal, the largest of his career. In the time since, he and his family grew to love the city.
They rave about the Flames organization, too. When they first arrived in Calgary, Ashley told owner N. Murray Edwards she was concerned the arena’s family room was a bit beaten down. Edwards proceeded to renovate it, she said, with no questions asked. Sam mentioned how the Flames went “all out” to celebrate his son’s 1,000th career game earlier this season. The team had Kadri’s daughter, 6-year-old Naylah, announce the starting lineup in the Flames dressing room.
And, in the end, the Flames moved Kadri to his No. 1 trade option.
“For them to take care of a veteran player and put him where he wants to go and have that conversation and put in that work, I feel like that’s a bit of a lost art in the executive positions these days,” Kadri said. “I’m a fan of theirs for life.”
Helped by a 35-goal season from Kadri, Calgary nearly made the playoffs in 2024-25. This season, though, has been a struggle. The Flames are in the bottom five of the league standings. Once it became clear they weren’t making the postseason, Kadri’s camp and the organization began discussing trade possibilities, according to a league source.
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“Although the group was amazing, the management was amazing, the ownership unbelievable, the community was excellent, you still want to win,” Sam Kadri said. “We knew that wasn’t going to be the case. It started becoming more and more frustrating for Nazem.”
Kadri has a 13-team no-trade list this season, which eliminated some interested teams. Colorado, of course, wanted to make a reunion happen, and Montreal — the team Kadri grew up cheering for — was in the mix until the afternoon on deadline day, the league source said. Ultimately, the Avalanche landed him for a 2028 first-round pick, a 2027 second-round pick, Victor Olofsson and prospect Max Curran. The Flames retained 20 percent of Kadri’s salary.
The Avalanche and Flames reached the deal around an hour before the deadline, per a league source. But the league office has to process each pre-deadline move, so the flurry in the lead-up to 3 p.m. ET can lead to a logjam, leading to the stressful moments in Kadri’s living room. Conroy called him immediately after the league approved the deal.
“Over the course of my professional career I’ve only been traded twice, and it’s been to the same team both times,” Kadri said with a laugh. “They must really like me.”
Ashley remembers her first time moving to Denver in 2019. She noticed that her husband didn’t get recognized nearly as much as he did in Toronto, a hockey hotbed. His return to Colorado this weekend went much differently. The Kadri family landed at Denver International Airport late Saturday night, and Nazem tried “to stay incognito,” he said.
It didn’t work. Fans approached him. Ashley said some asked him to sign jerseys. A security guard recognized him and escorted the family to baggage claim, where people helped him with his luggage.
“This hockey community has grown so much over the last handful of years since I’ve even been here last,” he said.
And, of course, he’d given it plenty of reason to remember his face.
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After Kadri signed with Calgary, he and his family knew the Avalanche were good enough to contend for another Stanley Cup. Every year, Ashley said, they would cheer for their friends in Denver once the Flames season ended.
“But in the back of your mind you know that Naz (was) just going to be so crushed to know that he couldn’t be there (if Colorado won again),” she said.
That concern is gone. If the Avalanche hoist the Cup in the near future, Kadri won’t be missing out.
By the time warmups began Sunday, fans were packed four rows deep next to the Avalanche bench. Several held signs welcoming Kadri back. No. 91 jerseys dotted the crowd.
Kadri was one of the final Avalanche players to take the ice. He smiled as the crowd saluted him, then waved when the video board showed his face for the first time. He was anxious before the game, he said, desperate for the puck to drop.
“Once the game starts and it’s a matter of winning and losing,” he said, “that’s when I’m in my comfort zone.”
During a stoppage in the first period, the team played a welcome back video, showing highlights from his first Avalanche tenure, including him lifting the Stanley Cup. Shortly after, Kadri nearly scored on a one-time look on the power play.
Minnesota seized a 2-1 lead in the third, but a goal from Roy — Colorado’s other major deadline addition — sent the game to overtime, then ultimately a shootout. With a chance to win the game in the third round of the shootout, Bednar tapped Kadri’s back and sent him onto the ice. Spectators around the arena rose to their feet and once again drowned out the announcer’s voice.
It was the loudest the building got all game.
“It’s almost like a pinch-me type moment,” Kadri said, joking that he thought to himself, “Hey guys, can you settle down? I’ve got to try to focus here.”
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Wild goalie Jesper Wallstedt prevented the arena from experiencing an all-time crowd pop, saving Kadri’s attempt. MacKinnon ensured it didn’t haunt the Avalanche or put too much of a damper on Kadri’s return. He won the game with a goal in the next round of the shootout.
Ashley, who watched from a suite, described the game as emotional. In its aftermath, Naylah darted through the hallway with a pair of white pom-poms. She was too young in 2022 to remember much about her father’s championship run, though she tells her mom she remembers drinking Sprite out of the Stanley Cup. This time around, she’ll be able to take more in.
Nearly 20 reporters crowded around Kadri’s locker after the game. Though tired from a whirlwind few days, he smiled as he answered questions about his homecoming.
“I couldn’t have asked for anything better,” he said.
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Peter Baugh is a staff writer for The Athletic NHL based in New York. He has previously been published in the Columbia Missourian, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Kansas City Star, Politico and the Washington Post. A St. Louis native, Peter graduated from the University of Missouri and previously covered the Missouri Tigers and the Colorado Avalanche for The Athletic. Follow Peter on Twitter @Peter_Baugh
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