Keeler: Avalanche hero Nazem Kadri just made Nathan MacKinnon smile like it’s 2022 all over again
It took one game for Nazem Kadri to turn the NHL’s perpetual frown completely upside down.
Nathan MacKinnon hasn’t flashed a smile like that on the ice since, what, June 2022?
Just saying.
“I’ve been here a short while, and I think we’ve got what it takes (to win it all),” Kadri said Sunday after helping the Avalanche snatch a scrappy shootout win over the Minnesota Wild in Naz’s Denver return.
“Being around the guys and understanding their level of focus … they understand that we’ve got ourselves a great opportunity here. And when everyone’s on that same page … (During the) 2022 (Stanley Cup run), that’s exactly the feeling I had. So, I mean, there’s a lot of work to be done. Nobody’s going to give it to us. But we’re going to work for it.”
Speaking of work, it only took Kadri about a period-and-a-half to remind Avs fans exactly what they’d missed about him. The poking. The prodding. The pressing.
With 7:41 to go in the second stanza, the veteran Avs forward closed in and nagged Wild defenseman Brock Faber behind the Minnesota goal — intercepting Quinn Hughes’ drop pass for Faber in the process.
“I think we had some good pressure on the forecheck,” Kadri said. “Made a good read, picked off a pass and found Nate in the slot. He’s going to bury that.”
Whenever MacKinnon’s lurking nearby, it only takes a split second to turn a moment of chaos into utter genius.
Sure enough, Kadri spotted a charging Nate Dogg all alone in the right face-off circle, and fed the Avs center a laser from goalie Jesper Wallstedt’s blind spot. MacKinnon celebrated the gift by launching a wrister over the Wild netminder’s shoulder, putting the hosts on the board with a 1-0 lead.
Cue that smile. Oh, doctor. It was luminous. MacKinnon saves that one for Cup clinchers, downtown victory parades, and reunions with his closest pals. Nate Dogg hugged Kadri. Avs fans hugged one another.
NHL? You’re in trouble deep.
Lord Stanley? We’ve got a table waiting for you at Fogo De Chao.
The helper was Naz’s first point with the Avs since his winning goal in overtime at Tampa to close out Game 4 of the 2022 Stanley Cup Finals.
Mike Penny actually saw that last one in the flesh. Sort of. The Avs diehard was part of a pack of about seven “KADRI 91” sweaters sitting shoulder to shoulder in Sections 128 and 130 Sunday.
“It was amazing,” Penny said of that Naz game-winner. “We were catty-corner from where the goal got scored. And we saw these four Avalanche fans just jumping up and down. And we’re like, ‘They must have scored! They must have scored!’
“So we started jumping up and down. And then next thing you know, the whole crowd erupts.”
“Even the Lightning fans?” I wondered.
“Well, not really,” Penny replied. “But all the Avs fans in the crowd.”
Can’t make this stuff up, kids.
“We knew Naz was coming back (today), right? So we all decided to keep our tickets,” Penny’s friend Marc Angel explained. “And we were all like, ‘Look, we are wearing the Naz (sweaters on Sunday).’”
Angel showed me a group text they’d put together after Avs GM Chris MacFarland landed Kadri from Calgary this past Friday. a coordinated effort to make sure everybody nabbed those old 91s out of the back of the closet. Like Colorado’s power play, it takes a village, sometimes.
“Ever year, (Penny) would get mad at me and tell me, ‘He’s coming back, he’s coming back, I know he’s coming back,’” Angel recalled. “This year, it actually happened.”
“Look, I kept the sweater,” Penny countered. “I don’t know what else you want!”
One more Cup?
One more summer cigar at Civic Center park?
“I’ve never been a (trade) deadline guy,” Kadri said. “But, you know, to come here and play in front of these fans and play with this team is exactly what I could have asked for.”
If Sunday was any indication, the love affair between Avs fans and Kadri burns as hot as ever.
Derek Huffman brought a 2019-2020 game-worn No. 91 with him from Thornton for Sunday’s homecoming. He’s got two more Naz sweaters back home.
“I call him, like, a Claude Lemieux. Like a hemorrhoid,” Huffman said. “The ones you want on your team. And hate when they’re not on your team.
“The guy just pokes and pokes and knows where to poke at.”
Huffman was on a Teams call in his home office around 2-ish this past Friday afternoon when news of the Kadri trade broke.
His daughter, working upstairs, let out a cry.
“OH MY GOD!”
She went running down the steps and burst into Derek’s room. Huffman turned his mute on and his camera off. Why let a business call ruin a moment of absolute elation?
“We landed him,” she told Huffman. “Oh my God.”
“For what?” he queried.
Once they found out?
Oh. My. God.
“It’s the best thing in the world. I think (Kadri) might be the missing piece,” Huffman gushed. “When you add that back in there and the grit — you already saw it in the beginning of the game, just a grit, (his) back-checking. Getting his face in the middle of the net and everything else. Just being him.”
Naz skated with the top line and opened on the first power-play unit. With 13:03 to go in the first period, the Avs ran a video tribute of Kadri’s first Denver stint, capped by a WELCOME HOME message on the scoreboard.
Kadri looked up, briefly, then wagged a gloved finger in appreciation. As the applause continued, his gaze turned back quickly to the ice.
“It’s almost like a ‘pinch-me’ type moment,” Kadri said later. “Like, ‘Wow, this is crazy. Hey, guys, can you settle down? I’ve got to focus here.’ But no, of course, I love the noise. I love the support. And these fans are special.”
You’ve heard of fans who can’t wait to drive a player to the airport, right? Avalanche faithful apparently tried to get Kadri from DIA back to Ball Arena quicker after his plane landed late Saturday night.
“You get spotted?” I asked Naz.
“Several times, yeah,” Kadri replied. “But they actually helped me out with my luggage.”
Denver fans with the assist. Naturally. Some legends write themselves. And some sequels are worth the wait.
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