A Quick Word: Nazem Kadri is a dirty player and doesn't deserve a defense

Dirty. Player. Incarnate.

Certain players have an intent to hurt. They just do. Whether it was part of their hockey DNA or a mid-career need to elevate their game past a level, they do things that simply aren’t right.

Shortly after Ivan Barbashev planted his teammate into a different dimension with a hit on Saturday night during Game 3 of the playoff series between the St. Louis Blues and Colorado Avalanche, Kadri went crashing into the Blues net, injuring Jordan Binnington. Avs fans, the same people who would despise Kadri if he wasn’t on their team, were quick to defend him.

Was Kadri purposefully, with tunnel vision, trying to rip off Binnington’s knee or the defenseman in front of him? A case can be made against that, but there was clear intent to disrupt and harm, no doubt. Why else do you go crashing into the net as the defenders are hitting the brakes around you? Again, there’s history here.

St. Louis hockey fans were having none of it. They already watched Torey Krug get run like that in the previous series, and already know Kadri’s dirt cheap ice demeanor from last year’s playoff series with the Blues. That hit on Justin Faulk last spring was about as awful as the Binnington hit, if not more so. He was suspended and left out of the series.

2021-22 playoffs come along, and he’s back at it. The Avalanche were down and feeling the full brunt of the Blues pressure, and Kadri tried to change that. He succeeded, because St. Louis was taken out of that game mentally after Binner left. Sell me all your “they didn’t play good defense” or “blew a big chance” takes. Stuff them somewhere else where bush league hockey opinions matter.