Gary Nylund
Registered User
- Oct 10, 2013
- 30,053
- 22,463
I guess you could say he weathered the elements and made good use of the positives afforded him along the way. He never completely derailed but came close. Given fair opportunity for his skill, he has performed or exceeded expectations.
Made good use ... that's a good way of putting it. I don't think he came close to "completely derailing" though. The one thing I always liked about Kadri is that the effort always seemed to be there, he was always near the top of the list as far as how often players on the team "showed up to play". And while none of us can know how serious these off-ice issues were, the fact that he was so consistent in his effort suggests to me that they weren't so bad, that perhaps it was more a matter of perception (represent the team proudly on and off the ice). Nobody saw the suspension coming, he did his time and continued on as if it had never happened. That's hardly a player close who's close to "derailing".
This is like his career in a nutshell for me - He was always going to be a fine producer who could stick around in the NHL for quite some time just based on his natural abilities. However, he also always had the potential for so much more than that, and simply needed help figuring out how to put everything together.
Kadri's always struck me as someone who's grown up with a chip on their shoulder, someone with a lot to prove (both to himself and possibly his detractors) - That feistiness was always going to provide the drive required for him to be a competent player in the NHL, and his natural skill would make up the rest. But, to be a truly elite player, he had work to do, and he needed the right people to support him and help him develop that aspect of his game. Those people were not all always in place early on in his career, but they definitely seem to be now.
The people who acknowledge that he turned things around, at least on a mental level, are certainly right, but so are those who acknowledged that he was always a special talent and supported him early on in his career when he was struggling to carve out his role on the team - He was always a good player doing a lot of the right things on the ice, he just needed help putting everything together and becoming a consistent threat over all 200' of the rink.
To try and pretend like he was reprogrammed into a completely new player, or to try and pretend that he hasn't come a long way since Babcock and Shanahan got their hands on him, is disingenuous, and reeks of trying more to win an argument than trying to understand the development and growth of a real-live human being. We've seen both of those arguments around here in the past, and I just hope we're done with them so we can all simply enjoy how good Kadri is.
Nice post!