The Flames are signing UFA center Nazem Kadri to what is believed to be a seven-year deal. (Dreger)
The deal is seven-years and has a cap hit of $7 million. (Friedman)
The Rangers were linked to Kadri at the start of free agency, but signed Vincent Trocheck to a seven-year deal.
Adam Rotter: Once the Rangers signed Trocheck they were obviously out on Kadri. Kadri is a better overall player, and just came off a Stanley Cup, but Trocheck brings a similar style of play. They are both speedy, forechecking centers that aren’t afraid to be physical and can produce offensively. Kadri has just been little bit better and more consistent, but he is also a player with much higher name ID than Trocheck. Kadri had a monster season for Colorado and was a big part of them winning last year, but his time in Toronto and some of his suspensions have always kept him in the news. Trocheck has been in Florida and Carolina and has flown a lot more under the radar, so while I do think that Kadri is a better player, how much of that is based upon name ID and recency bias (Stanley Cup and huge offensive season) than their actual play on the ice?
One thing that could work in Trocheck’s favor though is that until last season, when Kadri, as a pending UFA, had a monster offensive season, the two had similar point per game rates of between .65 and .69 (depending on if you include Kadri’s first couple of seasons in Toronto and exclude last season) for Kadri and a career .68 points per game for Trocheck.
The best part of this news though is that Kadri is staying in the West and it puts to bed the rumors that he and the Islanders had agreed to a deal but were waiting to make it official.