The Untouchables
Let me give a quick summary of the three untouchables — Roman Josi, Ryan Ellis, and Pekka Rinne.
First and foremost, Josi’s no-movement clause was always going to prevent him from being traded, and keeping a player of his caliber and importance to the team is a no-brainer anyway.
It was a question of whether Ellis or Forsberg would be the next most untouchable player, but Ellis’ contract makes him a more logical choice to keep because of the length of his contract. That and he has turned in arguably the second best performance on the team since the start of 2019-2020.
And of course, keeping Rinne off the trade market is a pure loyalty move by David Poile.
Realistically, it wouldn’t be a horrible idea to trade him for some future compensation, but Rinne is such a prominent member of the Predators organization, and I cannot argue with what Poile is doing.
Rinne has a clause in his contract that has a 10-team list, per CapFriendly.com. Take that for what it is.