Nazem Kadri was sent down to the minors today when it was determined that James Reimer was unable to go and Ben Scrivens was re-called. I personally believe that Kadri's free-ride as the top Leaf prospect is over. From here on out he is going to have to earn his playing time in the NHL by maturing, refining his game in the minors, and developing his abundant skill-set into an NHL skill-set. Kadri was given a shot (albeit brief) early in the season to play with the Leafs. Through 3 games Kadri had posted 1 assist and 2 penalty minutes...nothing mind-blowingly good or bad in this case. Kadri's biggest disappointment seems to have come this alleged middle finger to a camera man during a Leafs scrum with Clarke McCarthur:
If he was in fact giving the finger to a camera man it shows that he has not matured one iota since his days in the OHL. Personally, I don't know whether he did give the finger to someone, he was pulling the old 'eyebrow scratch', or whether he just felt like rubbing his forehead...but the fact that he was sat after the game and now sent down to the minors speaks volumes for what management thought of his actions. As we have seen, his stat line and play early on hasn't been that bad, so one has to conclude that Burke and his team feel it is his attitude that needs re-adjusting.
Kadri is now walking that fine line between 'top prospect' and 'head-case' within the Leafs organization. Not helping Kadri's cause is the inspired play of Joe Colborne with the Toronto Marlies, who appears to have embraced his time in the minors as a period to figure out how to become a dominant NHL center iceman. Colborne has quietly gone down and led the league in scoring with 15 points in a mere 7 games. Impressive stuff for a kid who wasn't even a point-per-game player in the AHL last year.
In speaking with Terry Koshan in his Toronto Sun piece Colborne said “I got the first taste of it last year (when he had an assist in his lone Leafs appearance) and it lights a fire in your gut to get back there”. This is the attitude that successful prospects and players have. The desire to get better. The desire to win. The desire to be the best and be at the top level. Colborne is now pushing into that top prospect spot. So are Matt Frattin (NHL), Jake Gardiner (NHL), Stuart Percy (OHL) and Tyler Biggs (shudder), leaving Kadri trailing behind as the entitled kid that thinks he deserves more. At some point Kadri will have to turn that desire in to some form of effort and drastically change his attitude or else he will be left behind in the AHL to sulk and give the finger to Rogers Cable 10 reporters.
-BFin
www.twitter.com/bfinley84
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