As he approaches his 500th game, Nazem Kadri reflected on a career of ups and downs while looking forward to what he believes are great things to come for the Maple Leafs.

“It’s been quite the journey. It’s been fun being able to represent the team and the city for that long. I just feel privileged,” said Kadri. “The fans and the city of Toronto embraced me and just stuck with me through the hard times. You never want to be a disappointment, so I tried to bear down and get the job done.

“There’s no other place I’d rather be,” said Kadri. “I really want to know what it feels like to win in this city. So I’m just looking forward to the future.”

Kadri will play game No. 500 on Monday night against the Calgary Flames — teammate Jake Gardiner hit the milestone on Saturday.

Kadri’s feat will come without Auston Matthews, who missed Sunday’s practice with a sore shoulder and will sit out Monday’s game. Matthews will be re-evaluated Monday, but it sounds like the Leafs are bracing for the worst.

“Everyone has to pick up the slack. Auston going down doesn’t necessarily fall to one person,” said Kadri. “Everyone has to contribute. We’ve been talking about the depth of our team, and we understand we have good depth. If you play the right way with good structure with good effort, you’re going to get rewarded for it. We have to stay with it.”

Matthews “is in good spirits,” said winger Mitch Marner. “We’re going to miss him. It’s a hard spot to fill, but it’s going to have to be done.”

The Leafs have been without William Nylander all season, with the restricted free agent still unsigned, and have managed to go 8-3-0. Matthews’ injury will further test the Leafs depth, with coach Mike Babcock rolling out new line combinations.

The spotlight will be shining on Kadri, who has scored in two straight games after going the first nine without a goal. He’ll get a bigger role, reunited with Marner and Patrick Marleau, a line that had success on Saturday against Winnipeg after they played together a fair bit down the stretch last season.

“(Kadri) is an important player for us, no one ever questioned that,” said Babcock. “(He has) the ability to be nasty and help your team. Sometimes it doesn’t go your way, because you like to get off to a good start, but you have to battle through it and he’s done that.”

That moved Kasperi Kapanen to the right wing with John Tavares and Zach Hyman. Frederik Gauthier centred Tyler Ennis and Josh Leivo. Par Lindholm returned to centre between Connor Brown and Andreas Johnsson, who has one assist in six games, and will get back into the lineup after missing the last two as a healthy scratch.

“He’s got to play heavy,” Babcock said of Johnsson. “When he has the puck, where does the puck end up? In other words, do they have it or do we have it? That’s a priority. That whole line with Lindholm and Brown, that’s the challenge for all them.”

When practice was over and the news of the day settled in, Kadri fondly remembered the coaches who helped him along the way: the tough love of Ron Wilson, Dallas Eakins and Randy Carlyle.

“There have been a lot of them, quite a few in this organization that I’ve seen come and go, and every one of them had an impact on my development and my career path,” said Kadri. “They all made me a better player.”

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

He remembered his first game after an emergency recall on Feb. 8, 2010 against the San Jose Sharks. He played 17:26, was minus-1 and lined up for the opening faceoff against Jumbo Joe Thornton, who won it cleanly.

“I think I almost snapped my wrist in half,” said Kadri. “Jumbo, he won it clean. I think he knocked the stick out of my hand. At that point, I was kind of like, ‘Mmm. I should probably bear down a little bit if this is what it’s going to be like.’ It was an early wakeup call.”

Read more about: