Kadri steals the spotlight in McDavid-Matthews show
Leafs 'veteran' scores twice - including OT winner - as marquee matchup fizzles
Nazem Kadri claimed to be unaware of the hype driving Tuesday's matchup between the Toronto Maple Leafs and Edmonton Oilers or rather the first ever NHL meeting between Connor McDavid and Auston Matthews.
The Leafs top line centre ultimately stole the spotlight from McDavid and Matthews. Not only did the 26-year-old Kadri help keep McDavid off the scoreboard entirely, but managed a pair of goals himself, including the overtime winner on a play that saw him elude the grasps of the Oilers captain.
"He can embarrass you when he gets time and space so I just tried to limit that from him and just stay on top of him as much as I could," Kadri said after the 3-2 win.
"He's a good player," McDavid added of Kadri. "He played me hard. Good for him."
The game itself never quite materialized into a showdown between McDavid and Matthews, who was also held off the scoreboard for the fourth consecutive game. The hype, which saw even Wayne Gretzky and Bobby Orr fly in to attend, exceeded the reality with McDavid and Matthews seeing the ice against one another only sparingly.
That was largely a result of the matchups which saw Kadri facing off against McDavid.
Limit time and space
He went out of his way to make McDavid uncomfortable right off the hop, shoving the 19-year-old onto the ice on the very first shift of the game and later driving him into the endboards after a whistle, which McDavid casually laughed off. If not a message per se to Edmonton's young star, Kadri wanted it known that both he and the Leafs would be hard to play against.
"I'm not just going to let him walk all over the ice because he's a great player," Kadri said. "He's going to make plays if you give him the time and space to do that. So I just wanted to just be hard on him from the get-go."
It worked pretty well for the most part.
The Leafs finished with a hearty 61 per cent puck possession mark in the 11 minutes (five-on-five) that Kadri was on the ice against McDavid.
All throughout the night Oilers coach Todd McLellan worked to get extra opportunities for McDavid, shuffling him onto three of the four Edmonton lines. That forced his counterpart, Mike Babcock, to work extra hard at ensuring that Kadri and his top defensive pairing of Morgan Rielly and Nikita Zaitsev got on the ice to match up against McDavid wherever possible.
'Never expecting him to play that much'
Babcock was surprised at how much McLellan, his former assistant in Detroit, used McDavid, who played almost 23 minutes in his first ever NHL game in Toronto, including more than eight minutes in the opening frame. The Leafs coach thought McDavid wore down as the night wore on.
"I was never expecting the guy to play that much," Babcock said. "He's a good player and all that, but so is [Ryan] Nugent-Hopkins."
McDavid still got his chances, rushing down the right side at one point in the middle period before flipping a backhand attempt at Frederik Andersen, who stopped 44 of 46 Edmonton shots.
McDavid finished with four shots, held pointless in consecutive games for the second time this season.
Kadri has grown quite comfortable in his role as Babcock's go-to matchup centre, even seeing an offensive reward early this season that was lacking (mostly due to bad luck) to start last year. Kadri has already scored five goals (and added three assists) in his first 10 games. He needed 27 games and almost two months (Dec. 5) to get there last season, still finishing the year as the Leafs leading scorer with 45 points.
"Last year I had a ton of shots and a ton of Grade-A scoring chances, I just wasn't able to find the back of the net," Kadri said. "Hockey's a funny sport. Sometimes that happens."
'I have an opinion. I don't really want to share it'
He beat the McDavid line for a goal just 89 seconds into the first frame, depositing a Connor Brown feed past Oilers goaltender Cam Talbot. He added the winner 12 seconds into overtime, shielding off McDavid for control of the puck just inside the Oilers zone before beating Talbot once more with a deke and goal.
McDavid protested to officials in the immediate aftermath of the marker, likely unhappy with Kadri using his off-hand to push his opponent away from the puck.
"I have an opinion on it," McDavid said. "I don't really want to share it too much. The ref saw what he saw. Kadri made a good play."
One of many on a night that belonged, not to the two No. 1 overall picks, but Kadri, who played only 14 minutes.
"To be honest with you I don't know what people were talking about before the game," he said. "I was just focused on my matchup and my assignment and just doing whatever I can to help the team win."
