Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

This is the 2023-24 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

91

Nazem Kadri

Calgary Flames Center

Fifty-six points and a minus-19, on a club whose ice he was better than.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2009-10TOR1000-10000017:26
2010-11TOR293912-38000515.915:47
2011-12TOR21527+281012817.914:10
2012-13TOR48182644+152350110716.816:03
2013-14TOR78203050-116770214813.517:23
2014-15TOR73182139-72831117610.217:36
2015-16TOR76172845-15734022606.518:16
2016-17TOR82322961-795120623613.616:35
2017-18TOR80322355+242120321115.216:46
2018-19TOR73162844-2434051848.716:11
2019-20COL51191736+79740113314.317:26
2020-21COL56112132-7343031706.516:28
2021-22COL71285987+137180624711.319:14
2022-23CGY82243256-195611042679.017:13
2023-24 so far
Career821243325568-3364574135221811.017:06

This Season So Far

The 2023-24 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.

Last Season

24 goals and 32 assists in 82 games — 56 points at 17:13 a night, minus-19, with 11 power-play goals on 267 shots, converting at 8.99 per cent, and 56 penalty minutes.

A minus-19 on a club with the second-best shot-attempt share in the league is close to a statistical impossibility, and the explanation is in the goaltending. 53.8 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,099 minutes, the 80th percentile; his ice went 53-56 against an expectation of 52.54-45.13 — eleven more goals conceded than the chances predicted.

It followed a 87-point season in Colorado and a Stanley Cup.

The Finesse Game

267 attempts is the second-highest total on the club and it came at a median of 28 feet with 33 per cent from inside 20, converting at only 8.99 per cent off an 88.4 mph shot at the 32nd percentile.

243 goals and 568 points in 821 games. Eleven power-play goals says the net-front work is still excellent, and the five-on-five finishing was poor enough to be worth watching rather than dismissing — 267 shots should produce more than 24 goals for a player of this quality.

The Physical Game

6-0 and 185 and he plays far heavier than that — 645 penalty minutes in 821 games, and a reputation built on suspensions that have twice cost his club playoff games.

He goes to the net, he takes the cross-check, and he answers it. The skating is ordinary at 21.9 mph, the 28th percentile, and 2.93 miles a game at the 76th says the work rate is not the issue.

The Intangibles

Seventh overall in 2009 to Toronto, fourteen seasons, and a career that has been defined as much by the suspensions as by 568 points.

He is 33, in the second year of a seven-year contract signed at thirty-one. The club needs the second half of that deal not to exist, and the more immediate question is whether a 33-year-old whose game is built on getting to the net can keep going there for five more years.

What kind of player

The searchable half of the report. The first group is computed from the season's own data; the rest are read out of the prose above, and each one carries the sentence that produced it. A subject the report never raised is simply absent.

  • measuredcomputed here from the season's own data
  • a strengthread out of the prose, and claimed

Each computed tag also says how well its measure holds up from one season to the next, because a tag describes a season that has finished and a reader will assume it predicts the one coming. Some do and some do not, and the gap is wide: five-on-five workload repeats well, scoring late does not repeat at all.

  • durable· was available

    82 of 82 games

    Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it

  • sheltered· is started in the attacking end

    62% of his end-zone starts in the attacking end, 90th percentile among forwards

    Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 47% keep it

  • net-fronta strength· lives in the blue paint; the screens and the tips

    “He goes to the net, he takes the cross-check, and he answers it.”

  • takes-libertiesa strength· crosses the line and knows where it is

    “645 penalty minutes in 821 games, and a reputation built on suspensions that have twice cost his club playoff games”

  • retaliatesa strength· answers the cross-check, and takes the second penalty

    “He goes to the net, he takes the cross-check, and he answers it.”

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2022-23 · 1,099 minutes

Expected goals
53.8%
80th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
57.6%
95th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 53 for, 56 against. Expected: 52.5 and 45.1.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
90th
Numbers
80th

The two rank him within 10 points of one another. It was written for a back edition, with the seasons that followed already known. Neither the agreement nor the gap says anything about the eye, and this report is excluded from the club-level comparison for the same reason.

Both bars are percentiles among the 120 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 74 on their own scale — against every other report's mean. The numbers bar ranks his share of expected goals. A gap is a disagreement about where he belongs, not two scales talking past each other.

Usual linemates

2022-23 · 1099 minutes at five-on-five

Share of his five-on-five ice time spent alongside each player, measured from shift charts. Special teams are excluded: a power-play unit is not a line.

Why the numbers land there

Five-on-five, 2022-23

The club
CGY took 55.2% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 53.8% — 1.4 below the club he did it on.
The role
Third line, 1,099 minutes at five-on-five — 70th percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Jonathan Huberdeau55.8%52.0%57.4%
Nikita Zadorov51.5%55.2%55.8%
Dillon Dube48.7%56.8%51.1%

55.8% together, 52.0% for him apart and 57.4% for Huberdeau apart. He was worse away from Huberdeau, who was no better away from him — he needed that pairing more than Huberdeau did.

Expected-goal share while both were on the ice, and for each man in the minutes he played without the other. Apart is the pair subtracted from his own totals. It does not settle who was carrying whom — apart from each other, both were still playing with somebody — but it does say whether the share travelled when the pairing broke up.

Where he shoots from

goal on goal missed

359 unblocked shots in 2022-23, 25 of them goals. His median goal came from 19 feet. 33% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 22% from beyond forty.