Nashville Predators: The salary cap situation going forward

2018-2019 offseason

This offseason is going to be interesting, as no key players will be unrestricted free agents (UFA) or restricted free agents (RFA). The UFAs that are leaving are Cody McLeod, Scott Hartnell, Alexei Emelin, Yannick Weber, Matt Irwin, and Anthony Bitetto. The RFAs whose contracts are up is Juuse Saros and Miikka Salomaki. I have a sneaking suspicion that Hartnell will retire after this season so I don’t think he’ll be re-signed. But if he wants to play, then the Predators should throw another million dollars at him. Also, Juuse Saros and Salomaki will most likely receive cheap bridge deals, as they should. That said, I don’t care about the rest of the group.

I hope the Predators only re-sign Irwin. I think Irwin has played extremely well on a third pairing and could be a serviceable vet in the seventh defenseman role. Yannick Weber, Alexei Emelin, and Anthony Bitetto have consistently given reasons why they shouldn’t play on this roster. Especially when Alexandre Carrier is knocking on the door of the NHL. Carrier is a right-handed shot who would fit perfectly behind P.K Subban and Ryan Ellis. Well, at least he’d fit in much better than Weber.

The offense is a little different. Like I said, I think Hartnell will retire and so that re-signing won’t be possible. Cody McLeod will be an easy choice, the Predators are clearly less enthralled with McLeod as he’s not in the line-up every night. I’m sure he’ll play more games as the season goals on, but The Predators have looked much better without him. Plus centers like Emil Pettersson and Vladislav Kamenev are looking for their chance in the NHL.

Before the Nashville Predators sign anyone, they’ll have a roster of 17 players, with four skater spots and one goalie spot open. Not only that, but the Nashville Predators will have 62.9 million in cap space. Actually, 61.3 million after buyouts end this season. With the current cap, that’s over 14 million in cap space to spend. That’s not even considering that the cap could go up by as much as five million dollars, as reported by Elliotte Freidman. I don’t expect for the Predators to spend much in this offseason, as the next offseason contains a few important UFAs.