TORONTO — In Nathan MacKinnon’s eight-game absence, Avalanche second-line center Nazem Kadri has been on an offensive tear, producing 17 points in climbing to fourth in NHL scoring.
Kadri has points in 11 of his past 12 games and Colorado is 7-1 since it lost its first-line center to injury.
MacKinnon is scheduled to return to the lineup on Wednesday against the Maple Leafs at Scotiabank Arena, and Colorado is hoping to restore what it believes can be a dangerous 1-2 punch down the middle.
“He’s been fantastic, simple as that,” Avs coach Jared Bednar said of Kadri. “Even more so with Nate out of the lineup. I’m impressed with what he’s doing.”
Kadri, now in his third season with the Avs, played his first nine seasons with the Maple Leafs, who made him the No. 7 overall selection of the 2009 draft. This will be Kadri’s first game back in Toronto, where he played 561 games.
Kadri, a pending unrestricted free agent, was not made available to the media after Monday’s practice. The Avs traveled to Toronto on Tuesday, choosing not to skate. Kadri’s bound to get massive media attention after Wednesday’s morning skate in the frenzied hockey market.
“I’m sure he’s fired up to go back there,” Avs captain Gabe Landeskog said. “He was there a long time. So to come back there, especially the way he’s playing — he’s really one of the hottest players in the league for the last few weeks, last month.”
Colorado will play its second consecutive-night stretch in less than a week on Thursday at Montreal, and then complete the Canadian portion of the trip on Saturday at Ottawa. The Avs return to the U.S. for games Monday at Philadelphia and Wednesday at the New York Rangers.
“It’s going to be fun going out east and going out of division and the conference and see some of these teams that we haven’t seen in a long time, kind of bring it back to somewhat pre-pandemic — what the world used to look like back when we could go out east,” Landeskog said. “New York, haven’t been there in years, and Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa, it’ll be good test against good teams. We’ve been at home quite a bit here last month, so it will be a good test for us as a road team.”
