Maple Leafs coach Ron Wilson spoke often this week about the potential of his team sending rookie Nazem Kadri back to junior, despite the fact he had a successful training camp scoring three goals and five points and was a plus player in six pre-season games.
True, as Wilson pointed out, Kadri was placed in certain situations by the coach that allowed him to succeed – playing late in games and being used in the shootout. But the kid went out and executed…he got the job done.
He could have flopped in those situations.
Also true, as Wilson indicated, at around six-feet tall and clearly under 180 pounds, Kadri might not be prepared for the rigours of the NHL regular season. Even though the intensity gets jacked up toward the end of the exhibition schedule, it’s nothing compared to the regular season.
Then again, Patrick Kane, who is smaller than Kadri, not only made the Chicago Blackhawks as an 18-year-old two years ago, but he scored 21 goals and 72 points and was named the NHL’s rookie of the year.
It wasn’t until after the final decision to send Kadri back that Wilson said something that made more sense than anything else.
"You’re talking about a kid who scored 70 points in the OHL and we don’t want him to be a 50- or 60-point scorer here," said Wilson. "We want him to be a 100-point scorer. Sometimes the only way you can do that is at your own level with your peers. Be a dominating player, be a leader and come back next year ready to make our team."
Bingo!
I suspect Kadri could have survived this season and given half a chance, could have put up decent numbers. He showed in the pre-season that he has considerably more skill and drive than most of Toronto’s forwards, even those with considerably more experience at the NHL level.
But NHL history is riddled with players who were brought up as youngsters and while many of them survived, they never hit their potential in all departments of the game.
I often use the example of Derrick Smith, only because I covered him as a junior with the Peterborough Petes and watched as he carved out a decent NHL career before calling it quits because of injuries. After scoring 30 goals and 66 points in 70 games with the Petes in his second season of junior, Smith lit it up during OHL pre-season the following year and looked like he was going to be a Top-10 scorer in the league.
But then he left for NHL training camp with the Philadelphia Flyers and never returned to Peterborough. Smith actually put up great numbers in his first NHL season – 17 goals and 39 points in 77 games – but he never hit those heights again.
He was a solid defensive player, but I often wonder how his big league career would have gone had he played that final year of junior and learned to be a scoring ace? Smith, by the way, stood well over six-feet tall and weighed in excess of 200 pounds.
Some players are clearly ready for the NHL after three years of junior. Denis Potvin, for one, wanted to be in the NHL after three full seasons with the Ottawa 67’s, but that was in the days before underagers were allowed to make the jump. His game suffered as he bided his time, though he did go from scoring 15 goals to 35 in his fifth – that’s right, fifth – season of junior before jumping to the NHL.
The thing is, Potvin was a man playing with boys in junior. Kadri is still very much a boy – a wonderful prospect, no question, but he has some physical and mental maturing to do that will greatly benefit him when he finally joins the Leafs for good.
At the end of the day Kadri probably did enough to earn the right to stay with the Maple Leafs for at least nine games, to get his feet wet.
But in a year when Toronto will attempt to take a giant step forward by making the playoffs, which they haven’t done for four seasons, it’s hard to argue against sending him back to junior for one more season.
KEEPING TABS ON J.T.: Meanwhile on Long Island, first overall pick John Tavares will play as an 18-year-old for the Islanders with no chance whatsoever of being sent back to junior.
Tavares’s training camp has been rather low key, partially because he plays for the Islanders, who don’t generate a lot of publicity at the best of times, but also because the organization wants him to fly under the radar a bit to protect him.
Though he only managed a couple of assists in three pre-season games, Tavares has been the team’s hardest working player. Not only that, Tavares has taken special care when he speaks with the media to be very team-conscious and make sure it’s about the team, not just about him.
He doesn’t want to alienate himself from the veterans by being perceived as a cocky kid.
"The thing about Tavares is, while he has a special gift if being able to score goals, nobody is predicting he’ll step in and score 35 as a rookie and he understands there are parts of his game that need work," said one Islander observer. "He has been spending a lot of time with the coaching staff and seems willing to do whatever it takes to be better."
