Flames May Be Making Huge Mistake With Kadri

The Calgary Flames are at the bottom of the league this season and don't have much to look forward to with the underperforming players and aging veterans. There are some talented young players, but it's asking a lot of them to carry the team. Goal scoring has been dried up for some time now and Dustin Wolf just can't carry the team.

With all that being said, the Flames are in a spot where they should be selling off pieces this season. If not soon, then by the trade deadline. But while the players that should be moved have been in the rumor mill, it seems like Calgary management is making a poor decision when it comes to the team's future.

According to Darren Dreger, regarding Kadri's trade odds, he said, "I think they're slim at this point. Nazem Kadri loves Calgary, he wants to win in Calgary. The owner of the Flames is telling people that he has no interest in trading Kadri."

Sometimes, there's only so much a general manager can do if ownership is blocking trades or wants the team to go in a certain direction. The Flames have rebuilt since the early 2010s and it would do them a lot of good, especially if players like Kadri, Rasmus Andersson, and Blake Coleman were traded for assets and futures.

Kadri is 35 years old and has four goals and 11 points in 16 games. He has a cap hit of $7 million AAV for three more years after this and his contract turned to a 13-team no-trade list this season. The veteran isn't going to be getting better at his age and the Flames aren't going to magically become a Stanley Cup contender and start finding scoring out of nowhere. That hasn't been the case since Matthew Tkachuk and Johnny Gaudreau left and won't start again with aging players like Kadri, Jonathan Huberdeau, Mikael Backlund, and Coleman.

By keeping Kadri, the Flames would either be throwing away the coming years as they'd be stuck in mediocrity, or they would have to decide to add more talent. That isn't something last place teams generally do during the season. And adding big pieces doesn't always work. Take the Nashville Predators for example. The Flames are not in a good place and their coming decisions could make things worse, not giving them a direction to go in.