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After their third straight season ended by the Dallas Stars, the Predators found themselves in a familiar predicament. “What do we need to do to get our ticket punched to the Stanley Cup Finals?” Wolf pondered to himself as he was still mourning the 2020-2021 season. In each of the last 3 seasons, the Predators have made it to the Final 4, twice, in 2019 and 2021. In 2020 they also got to the conference semi-finals. In all 3 years, each time eliminated by the Dallas Stars. That Stanley Cup Final still evades them, and GM Eric Wolf had to make some aggressive changes to put this team in a stronger position to get over that conference final hump. “For years we have tried to develop players internally, but we haven’t had the success of our youth taking the steps I anticipated them to make. Sometimes that’s how the cards fall, and after we realized that for another straight year with no real reinforcements coming from within’, I had to get aggressive on the trade market.”

The Predators have been heavily involved in every EHE Entry Draft to date, always wielding a 1^st and 2^nd round selection in their arsenal, but not this year. The Predators made early off-season waves by getting aggressive on the trade front, and as a result, those picks fell victim.

“I knew we wouldn’t be very involved in this draft from as early as the beginning of the regular season.” Wolf said. “I knew early on, and we calculated that we’d lose a defenseman in the expansion draft, we projected that we needed to inject a top line forward to play with McDavid, and we projected we’d need to strengthen our bottom 6. In order to fix these holes without subtracting from the opening night roster is with draft picks.” And all of that became true this off-season, as Wolf predicted.

After losing Torey Krug to the expansion draft, a major hole needed to be filled on the blueline. “We have studied the 2021 free agent class very extensively, and although there are some options out there, signing a free agent is not always a guarantee, and in order to make it a guarantee, you’re usually overspending for one. I will always see if the free agent route is feasible before giving up assets on the trade market, but we determined the free agent market was not feasible for us this season.” With limited cap space, the Predators went to the trade route for a veteran defenseman. “We didn’t want to find a free agent that was just ‘good enough’, we wanted an adequate veteran defender with a lot of experience to be a pillar for our young defense core. We felt we’d only find what we were looking for if we went the trade route to find that.”

The Predators had been in talks with 5 different teams, but they found a trading partner at the last second with the Colorado Avalanche. “We always have solid talks with Kirklan in Colorado and we respect him a lot as a GM and friend in this league, it was quick to get a deal done as opposed to the other negotiations we were in where we were encountering a lot of friction.” Wolf said. The Nashville Predators sent Julien Gauthier, a 2^nd round pick, 6^th round pick, and 7^th round pick in exchange for Ryan Suter. “We gave up a lot of draft capital, but Ryan Suter fits the exact mould we were in the market for and with the knowledge we were competing with other teams for his services, we felt we needed to pull the trigger.”

Ryan Suter comes over from the Colorado Avalanche where he will provide a much needed veteran presence on the Predators blueline and mentor young defensemen Ethan Bear and Adam Boqvist. 

As a result, the Predators made a couple of minor deals sending Braydon Coburn to Montreal for Cash Considerations and Mark Friedman to Chicago for a 2021 7^th Round Pick in an effort to clear salary and a roster space to make the deal for a top 4 defenseman work financially. Coburn’s and Friedman’s one-way salaries were moved to also be able to acquire Chris Tierney from the New York Islanders for Cash Considerations.

Nashville sent $8,500,000 in cash considerations to the Islanders for the 3rd line center. Tierney has spent his entire EHE career with the Islanders organization. He is expected to sign long term, a 4 year contract extension with the Predators.

The biggest acquisition of all, a position the Predators seem to be in need of EVERY. FREAKING. YEAR. A top 6 forward that can play right wing. Nashville, forced to play Tyler Pitlick of all players in a top 6 role in the 20-21 playoffs for lack of a better option, made it their most urgent need this off-season.

“Just like with Ryan Suter, we determined we wouldn’t have been able to remedy our need for a top 6 right winger on the free agent market. There aren’t many options there, and the couple that are, you’re risking a blood bath of a bidding war, particularly because a lot of teams are in the market for a right winger right now.” Wolf explained.

Enter, the Tarasenkshow. In their biggest move, the Predators shipped off their 1^st round selection (29^th overall) for the services of Vladimir Tarasenko. “We first spoke to the Sharks about Tarasenko in mid July, so we’ve been circling back on the possibility of adding him for a month now. We talked to a handful of teams in the hunt for a top 6 forward, but value wise and financial wise, Tarasenko never left the top of our board for top line right wing targets.”

After spending 6 years in the Red Wings organization and most recently with the rebuilding Sharks. In the last year of his deal,Tarasenko joins the Predators where he is expected to play on the top line with Connor McDavid and Tomas Hertl. 

“We are really thrilled about the acquisitions. I have personally been a huge Tarasenko fan for as long as he’s been in the league, I remember kicking the tires on him when he played in Detroit, but GM Cisco would never budge, and rightfully so. Tarasenko is a premier player, and we have a lot of faith he will come back with a strong season this year. With the addition of him, Ryan Suter, and Chris Tierney, we feel we added some very solid players who will all be filling in vital roles our team was lacking last season.”

With Ryan Suter taking over the position left by Torey Krug, who was lost to expansion, the additions of Vladimir Tarasenko and Chris Tierney look to improve much needed depth up front, and have wingers like Tyler Pitlick play back to their skill level in the bottom 6. “These deals really help balance our roster and our lines more effeciently. Everyone is slotted now where they should be, and that was my goal heading into this off-season.”

With the 2021 EHE Entry Draft days away, and Free Agency later this off-season. Don’t expect the Predators to be big players in either of them. “Our first pick in this draft is #157… we don’t expect that to change.” Wolf admitted. “Our focus this year is our pro and farm teams. We’ll return to the draft table next summer.”

Free Agency is yet to be determined. “Obviously, like all teams in this league, if there is something there that makes sense, and you can improve from, we’ll look at it. I know every GM will be going into free agency with that mindset. But it’s impossible to find a bargain during free agent silly season, and we know how hard it is to sign someone, which was a big factor in why we made the deals that we did. We might get our feet wet, we have some ideas in mind, but if they don’t work out we won’t be devastated.”

Projected Nashville Lines 2021-2022

Tomas Hertl - Connor McDavid - Vladimir Tarasenko
Taylor Hall - Sidney Crosby - Tom Wilson
Ivan Barbashev - Chris Tierney - Ross Colton
Austin Watson - Derek Grant - Tyler Pitlick
Alex Volkov

Ivan Provorov - Damon Severson
Jonas Brodin - Ethan Bear
Ryan Suter - Adam Boqvist
Dean Kukan

Mackenzie Blackwood
Dan Vladar

Kirklan Lycar

Really good stuff Eric! Best of luck this year. Preds roster looking great!

Welcome to the Tarasenkshow
Preds' make a flurry of moves, in preparation for the 21-22 season.

• 4 teams Like this  3 years