Aarif Deen
Meet the Avalanche’s new bottom-six trio. It’s made up of two-thirds of the second line that helped win them a Stanley Cup in 2022, along with a key piece of the Vegas Golden Knights’ 2023 championship team.
It’s Nazem Kadri, Gabe Landeskog, and Nic Roy. And on this year’s Avalanche, it’s the third line on the depth chart.
“Killer line. Very excited,” Kadri said on Saturday, on the eve of Game 1 at Ball Arena against the Los Angeles Kings.
Head coach Jared Bednar has spent most of the season creating duos to build around. The top line is obvious — Nathan MacKinnon and Martin Necas are among the most dominant pairs in the league. On the second line, Brock Nelson and Valeri Nichushkin have become very familiar with each other’s games. But Bednar has made an effort to create another one.
Kadri and Roy.
Both centers, both acquired ahead of the March 6 deadline, and both for a hefty price that included a first-round pick going the other way. In the limited time they’ve had together because of separate injuries to each one, they’ve had some pretty solid chemistry. It never really mattered who the third piece on the line was. They even got to play limited minutes with Landeskog and looked good doing it.
“I feel like we both like to create chaos,” Roy said. “We can be a hard line to play against. Naz can make a lot of nice plays out there. I’m gonna try to protect him and create some space for him. Or try to set him up.”
Kadri hasn’t appeared in a playoff game since he helped Colorado win the Stanley Cup four years ago. In the dying seconds of the clinching Game 6 in Tampa Bay, Kadri was on the ice with Landeskog and Nichushkin to secure the victory.
Roy isn’t quite the same player as Nichushkin, but there are similarities.
“If you look at Roy’s game in particular in the last couple of weeks, he’s been great with whoever he’s been on a line with,” Landeskog said. “He’s a smart player, very poised, big body, strong with the puck. We should be a pretty hard-checking line.
Fully healthy, the Avalanche have arguably the deepest forward group in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. What makes this trio intriguing is that, most nights, they’re likely going to match up against bottom-six competition. And if they don’t, Nelson, Nichushkin, and the newest addition to the top six, Parker Kelly, will have that opportunity.
For Kadri and Landeskog’s sake, they most likely won’t need to produce at the same rate as they did in 2022. Not with the depth of the roster, and with MacKinnon, Necas, and Artturi Lehkonen doing their thing for roughly 20 minutes.
“We all work well off each other,” Kadri said. “It’s gonna be an extremely hard line to play against, and can obviously pitch in offensively.”
Kadri has four goals and nine points in 16 games after the deadline. He didn’t record a point in his last four appearances before sustaining an upper-body injury. Roy had three goals and five points in 15 games with Colorado, while playing on different lines, with several linemates, both at center and on the wing.
Having him on the right and Kadri at center will create continuity and allow them to build off the chemistry they built in those limited minutes together. It also gives them two natural centers for draws.
“Nic has some attributes that I really like when it comes to playing with a guy like Naz,” Bednar said. “He doesn’t like to throw the puck away. He’s able to hang on to it, find players in traffic, play a little give-and-go game. He’s as good a player as we have on the low cycle in the offensive zone.”
Kadri sees playing with Roy the same way: “He plays really well under the tops of the circles in the O-zone. Has pretty good vision, so I just gotta get open, and he seems to find me.”
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