Nashville Predators Dodged A Bullet By Letting Go Of James Neal

The Nashville Predators left James Neal unprotected in the 2017 Expansion Draft, allowing him to be selected by the Vegas Golden Knights, which couldn’t have ended up any better.

This might’ve possibly been the best possible outcome for the Nashville Predators,  as the Golden Knights could have snagged a solid roster piece in Craig Smith, Austin Watson and Colton Sissons instead.

Granted, the Golden Knights did get a good season out of Neal, as he did have a 25 goal season when the expansion franchise made their Cinderella run to the Stanley Cup Finals, but since then he has been a disaster.

On July 1st, 2018, James Neal signed a five year contract worth $5,750,000 per season with the Calgary Flames, which now looks like one of the worst contracts in the NHL.

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Granted, it’s only been one year since he signed that contract, but the signs of decay are already starting to show.

In his first season with the Flames, James Neal scored seven goals and 12 assists for 19 points in 63 games,  which is significantly worse than all of the players that the Nashville Predators could’ve lost, with even Austin Watson matching Neal’s goal total in nearly half the games it took Neal.

Each of those players are also making significantly less money than James Neal, with the most expensive of those being Craig Smith, who doubled Neal’s production for a whole $1.5 million less than what he is getting paid.

James Neal isn’t getting any younger either, as he is turning 32 in early September, which means he is entering the twilight of his career.

He will be getting paid almost $6 million until his age 36 season, an age in which many players production tends to completely drop off.

Although there is still a chance that James Neal can bounce back and make the Flames feel better about paying him that much money, the loss of James Neal allowed the Nashville Predators to make several roster moves that helped bolster the core.

If the Preds were the ones who were on the hook for James Neal’s $5.75 Million contract, which they very much could have if they lost a guy like Craig Smith in the expansion draft instead, they wouldn’t have been able to sign Matt Duchene and trade for Kyle Turris and Mikael Granlund.

It would also make the re-signings of Colton Sissons, Roman Josi, Rocco Grimaldi and Ryan Ellis (who inked a contract extension earlier in the year), much harder for GM David Poile to do with an underproducing player making that much money

With the financial freedom they got from letting go of James Neal, the Nashville Predators have been able to assemble one of the best cores in the NHL and with $5 million in cap space left to spare, David Poile might not be done yet.