Sources: Nazem Kadri “Wants To Stay” with Avalanche (+)

Last night, I went to bed thinking it was a long shot that Nazem Kadri would stay a member of the Colorado Avalanche. Now, I’m an optimist it will happen. Here’s why:

I’ve talked to a couple of league sources with knowledge of this stuff, and here’s the picture I can paint: After seeing the offers he got from other teams yesterday, Kadri wasn’t overwhelmed by any of them. At least not enough to say “Well, I can’t refuse that.”  Not to say any of them weren’t fine offers.

But after thinking about it overnight, Kadri has decided he’d like to come back to the Avalanche, at least according to my sources. Could that be wrong? Well, I don’t think what I just said is wrong. The better question: will he actually return to the Avalanche?

That’s where it’s a little more complicated. The Avalanche will have to move some salary in order to fit Kadri in. That most likely would be through trades. I think Sam Girard is the most likely target to be moved, as he has term on his deal at a $5 million cap hit. The Avs could trade him for a nice draft pick or two, get the money in savings they’d need to re-sign Kadri and call it a day.

The Avalanche right now only have about $4.6 million in available cap space, according to our friends at PuckPedia. Eliminate Girard’s cap hit and now you’ve got $9.6 million. Maybe Kadri comes in at 7 or maybe even 8, then they sign Jack Johnson (I think he’ll be back) and, boom, you got most of your Cup team back without blowing holes through the budget.

The things I don’t know right now: how much term does Kadri want, and will the Avalanche want to give him, say, a five-year deal?

Maybe they won’t want that, and Kadri moves on to one of his existing offers? But GM Chris MacFarland said yesterday he and the team want to be kept in the loop on Kadri. It sounds like they at least would like to top any offer. Maybe.

Also another thing I don’t know: maybe a team or two out there will raise their offer for Kadri? Maybe Kadri will grow impatient on waiting around and just take that team’s offer?

But I think the bottom line is this: Kadri wants to come back and the Avalanche are trying to figure out how to move things around so that can happen.

Stay tuned…