TORONTO — The San Jose Sharks say they’ve forgiven Nazem Kadri, but they certainly haven’t forgotten the time he mixed it up with their legendary captain.
That happened in this building on Jan. 4, when Kadri and Joe Thornton exchanged some serious whacks before the opening faceoff and wound up dropping the gloves immediately after. It was a brief melee — tough to even classify as a fight — and it saw Kadri end up with a clump of hair from Thornton’s formerly bushy beard in his hand while falling to the ice.
Kadri figured that was the beginning and end of the incident. At least until the puck dropped at the Shark Tank on Nov. 15 and Barclay Goodrow tried to goad him into a fight. He took a penalty instead, which led to an early 1-0 lead for the Toronto Maple Leafs on their way to a 5-3 victory.
The San Jose players seemed preoccupied with getting their licks in on Kadri throughout the game and didn’t hide from the fact it was in response to what they viewed as a lack of respect shown for Thornton.
“I love Naz. I drafted him, we won an OHL championship together [in Kitchener], I love him. I love how he plays,” Sharks coach Peter DeBoer said before his team faced Toronto on Wednesday. “I think with Joe Thornton, all I would say is I hope when Naz is 38 and playing on reconstructed knees and had the career that Joe’s had, that the next generation of player gives Naz the amount of respect that he deserves and has earned.
“That’s a lesson.”
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The lesson may have been lost on the student.
Kadri seems genuinely perplexed by San Jose’s continued agitation with him. After the Nov. 15 game in San Jose, he said: “I think they might have been a little too worried about the wrong thing out there.”
And after Tuesday’s practice he reasoned that the original score should have been settled when he accepted Thornton’s fight invitation last season.
“He initiated, he asked me to fight,” said Kadri. “I’m not trying to fight guys that are six inches and 50 pounds heavier than I am, that’s not something I want to do. It was his decision and I felt like I had to answer the bell at that point.”
While none of the Sharks delved too deeply into what specifically angered them about last season’s incident, Kadri did appear to catch Thornton with a whack to the hands before the opening draw. He also kept his visor-protected helmet on for the fight after the Sharks captain suggested they remove them.
“I’m never a guy that’s going to back away or back down,” said Kadri. “So however they want to play it’s cool with me.”
Retribution isn’t nearly as common in the NHL as it once was, with physical play and fighting on rapid decline. Heck, there have only been 11 minor penalties total in Toronto’s last five games, and the Leafs have taken just one fighting major all season.
This may not amount to much.
But with Auston Matthews rejoining Toronto’s lineup for Wednesday’s game, that drops Kadri to third-line centre and likely puts him in a matchup situation against Thornton. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see them square off for the opening faceoff against one another.
For his part, Thornton said he held no bad feelings about having to fight Kadri last season before adding: “We’ll see what happens tonight, too. It’s a hockey game, you never know what can happen.”
When the Sharks started chasing Kadri around two weeks ago, Leafs coach Mike Babcock instructed his team to stay out of “all the crap.” Besides, he figured there was really only one guy in San Jose colours that Kadri truly had to answer to.
“There’s no one tougher on their team than Big Joe,” Babcock said. “If Big Joe wants to look after something that happened in the past, he can probably do that. To me, it was good for Naz.
“Naz is that kind of guy — he’s a little bit greasy, anyway — so why not?”
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