A new era of Saber-Tooth

Crosby, the longest tenured captain in EHE history, captained the Predators from the inaugural season, amassing 716 Games, 351 Goals, and 516 Assists for 867 Points with the franchise.

That is why, on June 4^th, 2024, shockwaves were felt across the EHE, because the one player whom all thought would never be traded, was.

“No GM wakes up one day and suddenly decides they are going to trade Sidney Crosby. This was a decision that slowly came to fruition over the course of the last few months. Every day, we struggled with the concept, that if we went through with it, it was forever closing a door on a chapter in Predators history, and open the door to a new era.”

But a new door had to be opened.

Although it sent shockwaves throughout the league, the trade was seen as a changing of the guard in Nashville. A needed change, one that unfortunately couldn’t happen without moving their historic captain.

“It was tough. Many hard discussions were made with our staff, and with Crosby. However, considering how things have gone and how no matter what we seemed to do every summer to make changes to our depth to put us over the top, it just wasn’t working. We realized the change had to come from the core.”

The Predators put their money where there mouth was and completely shapeshifted their roster this deadline. In 3 trades with the Dallas Stars, Los Angeles Kings, and Philadelphia Flyers, here’s a breakdown of the team and who found themselves new homes:

Out:

Sidney Crosby (DAL)

Shayne Gostisbehere (DAL)

NSH 2^nd 2025 (DAL)

Tom Wilson (LA)

NYI 3^rd 2024 (LA)

Rasmus Andersson (PHI)

In:

Roman Josi

Marcus Foligno

Johnathan Gaudreau

LAK 4^th 2024

DAL 1^st 2024

PHI 1^st 2024

CAR 2^nd 2024

VGK 3^rd 2024

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These moves demonstrate how disappointing of a year it has been here in Tennessee. A Preds’ team that was unanimously voted to finish 1^st in the central division at the beginning of the season, are suddenly a lottery bound team just 6 months later.

With an overhaul of their roster at the deadline as a result, bringing in a new guard consisting of superstar Roman Josi, and scorer Johnathan Gaudreau. One trade was peculiar in that they offloaded Rasmus Andersson to the Philadelphia Flyers for a plethora of picks. An extremely rare move in which we don’t remember the last time the Predators traded a good player for futures. Are they rebuilding?

“As for the Predators future, our deals at the deadline may paint a picture that we’re running it back a little, and we are. We still want to remain competitive, but we also acknowledge how important it is to build a prospect base for long term success in this league. We probably ranked 32^nd in the league in terms of prospect development and prospects graduating to our pro team and becoming important players for our team. Every year we’d deplete our futures for short term fixes, or try to fill voids on our team via free agency, and it just hasn’t worked. So we're just not going to do that anymore.  We'll be active at the draft podium this summer. Something I bet our fans wished for when we hosted the draft last year.” Wolf chuckled as silence echoed throughout the room.

And with the new plan, the Predators suddenly boast 10 draft picks this summer, 7 of them consisting within’ the first three rounds.

“For the 2024-2025 our roster will look different, we are going to run it back a bit and we’ll probably be worse before we get better. We’re not stripping it down by any means, but we identified these moves, these steps, as necessary for us to turn the right leafs over, develop from within’ and build the seams back up that way. We want to stay competitive but build on the fly. And to do that, it came at a cost this year.”

Although the change in strategy and plans for the Predators is exciting to some, it is without the realization they’ll be without Sidney Crosby moving forward.

“It’s going to hurt for a long time. Sidney Crosby was the epitome of the Nashville Predators for 10 years. We are forever in debt for the services, devotion, and hard work he did for us, for our community in Nashville, and as our captain. We love you forever, Sidney Crosby.” Preds’ GM concluded with his post-deadline presser.

And with that, we are now in a new era in Nashville. This is Connor McDavid’s team now.