The Story Never Changes

Another off-season winds down for the Predators as they’ll embark on their 10^th EHE regular season with Eric Wolf at the helm. Mostly familiar faces returning for the 2023-2024 although Nashville did stir the pot a little bit moving out a couple of key players in an attempt to save money towards the salary cap and shake up the blueprint of the roster.

In a slew of trades a week prior to the 2023 EHE Entry Draft, the Predators were active making 4 deals in the matter of 2 days as teams from around the EHE were preparing for the draft. In those deals, they included moving out a plethora of 2023 picks in deals for future assets, which resulted in them going down in history as the worst franchise to host its own Entry Draft without a pick in the first 3 rounds. “Look, my wife would have killed me if I cancelled our honeymoon to attend the EHE draft, unfortunately for the fans I was not able to attend, therefore we ended up deferring most of our picks to 2024 via trades. We’ll make up for it and be active in the 2024 EHE Entry Draft.” Wolf quipped.

In terms of player movement, here are the notables this off-season:

OUT:

Carey Price (Retired)

Ivan Provorov (Traded to NYR)

Jonas Brodin (Traded to PIT)

Kasperi Kapanen (Traded to DET)

Patrick Brown (UFA)

Maveric Lamoureux (Traded to NYR)

IN:

Darcy Kuemper (Acquired from NYI)

Brandon Montour (Acquired from NYR)

Logan O'Connor (Acquired from PIT)

Ryan Poehling (Acquired from PHI)

Nashville conducted a bit of tidy business from teams in the Metro division. Trading Ivan Provorov along with solid prospect Maveric Lamoureux to the Rangers in exchange for Brandon Montour. Montour is off to a slow start this season coming back from injury, however the deal was necessary to the Predators in order to obtain a more offensive minded defenseman, as well as gaining 1.5 million in cap savings in the move.

Another cap saving deal, the Preds shipped 6 year Nashville veteran Jonas Brodin to the Penguins for Logan O’Connor and a 3^rd round pick in 2024. Nashvilled saved another 1.5 million in cap savings in that deal. “Tough to lose guys like Provorov and Brodin, but in these deals I had to put my heart on the side and remind myself they were necessary transactions otherwise we would’ve had zero cap space to help resolve other issues we had identified within’ the line-up.” Wolf said.

And the last notable transaction, acquiring Darcy Kuemper from the Islanders. “Carey Price retired, and for what felt like the 7^th off-season in a row, we needed a goalie. Kyle in New York gave us what I felt was a very fair price for us to re-acquire Kuemper. We’re confident he can hold the fort down until Dustin Wolf is ready to take the reigns full-time in Nashville.”

As mentioned earlier about the 2023 EHE Entry Draft, the Predators traded out of the first 3 rounds, mostly for picks in 2024. But that didn’t leave them without late round selections. Nashville selected the following players, all whom appear to be wildcard selections as opposed to going the more traditional route.

Round 4 (123) – Nikolai Kovalenko

Round 4 (124) – Vadim Zherenko

Round 5 (155) – Olle Lycksell

Round 5 161) – Alexis Gendron

Nikolai Kovalenko is slated to come over to North America next season and is under contract already. If he can translate his KHL success over in North America, the Predators could have an exciting player joining their arsenal soon.

Vadim Zherenko is already posting great numbers in the AHL and is poised to have a solid career if all the cards get played right for him.

Olle Lycksell is 24 years old already, but has seen lots of AHL success and if he continues to trend in the right direction, could be a decent utility player with a scoring touch for Nashville on the 4^th line.

Alexis Gendron just got sent back to the QMJHL where he is already scoring at a 1.75 point a game clip.

All late selections from Nashville, but intriguing selections to say the least as the team elected not to choose any 2023 first year draft eligible player.

With the draft and off-season in the rear-view mirror, the Predators hope that a roster that already won the Western Conference regular season title last year, along with some changes to the blueline, they are hopeful they have found the correct ingredients, without changing too much, to finally punch a ticket deeper into the playoffs. They’ll likely find themselves with another match-up against the Stars in what would be their 6^th consecutive season meeting them, as they have been eliminated by Dallas in 4 of their last 5 playoff meetings. It’s a test they will have to overcome in a story that seems never changes. A story they need to change in order to get to their ultimate goal, which is to be an EHE Stanley Cup Champion.... but alas, we'll have to wait and see what unfolds...

Harald Geissler

i would say we just call all other teams nashville predators too eric:)

The Story Never Changes
Preds' tidy up quiet off-season, hoping for a better ending story.

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