Nazem Kadri Sent Home After Late Arrival To Team Meeting

As the Toronto Maple Leafs continue to fall further into the abyss, it was only a matter of time before there was a dressing room distraction that wasn’t “He said, she said, they retweeted”. Today at Leafs practice, Nazem Kadri was sent home by Peter Horachek.

The Leafs had a mandatory team meeting ahead of today’s practice, and while Kadri showed up, he didn’t arrive on time. When asked what Kadri’s reasoning was, Horachek replied with “Not prepared. Wasn’t the snow.” 

Horachek decided that as punishment, Kadri would be completely excluded from the day’s events and sent home. Further to the point, Horachek hinted that a healthy scratch could be coming up, saying that he’s available to play tomorrow, but only “If I want him”.

It’s hard to say. For all we know, “not prepared” could mean “forgot to update his clocks for daylight savings”, which is something that would be both super embarrassing and super unimportant in the long run.

I don’t think that this is any indication that the Leafs and Kadri are going to have some sort of fall out, a la Evander Kane in Winnipeg. Horachek is unlikely to be around as head coach beyond the end of the spring, and wouldn’t be the right person to start up a rift. However, as someone who has always been big on accountability, he probably wants to prove that there are consequences to poor life choices. If you’re not going to build victories, you may as well build values.