{"id":496296,"date":"2026-03-10T10:26:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T10:26:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/496296\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T10:26:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T10:26:15","slug":"canadiens-were-in-the-mix-late-on-nazem-kadri","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/496296\/","title":{"rendered":"Canadiens Were “In The Mix” Late On Nazem Kadri"},"content":{"rendered":"

From the moment the Avalanche expressed interest in bringing\u00a0Nazem Kadri<\/a>\u00a0back into the fold, they became the frontrunner to land him from the Flames, although that didn\u2019t stop other teams from pursuing the top-six pivot. Part of why the initial Kadri to Colorado report didn\u2019t come out until an hour after the deadline passed was because of how aggressively the Canadiens were pushing to land him until ultimately backing out with less than a couple of hours to go, The Athletic\u2019s Peter Baugh<\/a> reports.<\/p>\n

Montreal\u2019s interest in Kadri isn\u2019t a new storyline. It was well-documented that they were in the market for a top-six forward (although preferably a winger<\/a>), but they were still limited in how many assets they were willing to give up at this early stage of their contention window. The Flames and Habs also had talks<\/a> surrounding\u00a0Blake Coleman<\/a>\u00a0throughout the year, and Montreal was also linked<\/a> to Calgary defender\u00a0Zach Whitecloud<\/a>\u00a0last week, although none of those deals ended up getting done.<\/p>\n

Instead, the Habs were silent last week. General manager Kent Hughes told reporters Friday after the deadline passed that they spent all their time that morning and afternoon on a \u201csignificant deal\u201d and didn\u2019t devote their attention anywhere else (via Arpon Basu of The Athletic<\/a>). Given Baugh\u2019s report, it stands to reason that the potential pickup was Kadri.<\/p>\n

A first-round pick, a second-round pick, a B-tier prospect in Max Curran<\/a>, and a salary ended up going back Calgary\u2019s way \u2013 and that was with the Flames retaining cash, which they wouldn\u2019t have had to do if they took Patrik Laine<\/a> off Montreal\u2019s hands in a Kadri deal. It was a matchable price, but evidently one Hughes determined Montreal wasn\u2019t willing to exceed before making a more serious playoff challenge with their existing core.<\/p>\n

The Habs will instead roll into what they hope will be a second consecutive playoff berth with a top-six forward group that, as currently constructed, has three players aged 22 or younger and no one over the age of 26. Montreal only has three forwards over the age of 30 \u2013 Josh Anderson<\/a>,\u00a0Phillip Danault<\/a>, and\u00a0Brendan Gallagher<\/a> \u2013\u00a0and they\u2019re all on a line together.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From the moment the Avalanche expressed interest in bringing\u00a0Nazem Kadri\u00a0back into the fold, they became the frontrunner to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":496297,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[26,144,5,21,2054,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-496296","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-calgary-flames","9":"tag-colorado-avalanche","10":"tag-hockey","11":"tag-montreal-canadiens","12":"tag-nazem-kadri","13":"tag-nhl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116204403988520008","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=496296"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496296\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/496297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=496296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=496296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=496296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}