Can Nashville Predators Afford to Make Another Move this Offseason?

As we expected, the Nashville Predators have made moves to bolster their lineup this offseason. They have addressed their two biggest needs in their top four on defense and second line, so if no more moves are made, we at least know that they have noticeably improved the roster since the season ended in May.

That being said, it is doubtful that the Predators as currently constructed can compete for a Stanley Cup. They realistically are not on the level of teams like Colorado, Tampa Bay and Florida, which is still the ultimate goal at the end of the day.

The Nashville Predators currently have just above $4M in cap space and still have to re-sign Yakov Trenin, whose contract negotiations are headed to arbitration. If they want to make another addition to their roster, there will clearly be some work to do.

A trade is the only option for the Nashville Predators at this point

It is pretty obvious that the Predators do not have room to re-sign Trenin, sign another impactful player in free agency, and still keep the rest of their roster intact. Something will have to give, which honestly would not be the worst thing in the world.

Dante Fabbro is still someone the Predators should be open to moving, as his contract has a cap hit of $2.4M, and assuming a fully healthy roster, his role will be third pairing defenseman at best.

The Predators also will not be able to keep everyone whose contracts expire next season, so it would make sense to trade now instead of a year from now when they are forced to move someone and have no leverage.

Additionally, the Predators still have Michael McCarron, John Leonard, and Markus Nurmi on the books, and moving all of their two-way contracts to the AHL plus bringing up Cody Glass would result in a net gain of $1,468,375. It is not much, but helpful for a team that is doing what they can to spend to the cap this offseason.

If all of this were to happen, the Predators would easily have room to trade for someone such as Jesse Puljujarvi, while also re-signing Trenin. They would easily benefit more from adding someone like Puljujarvi to their middle six than they would from keeping Fabbro on the third pair, so it’s definitely something they should consider.

It is highly doubtful at this point, but if the Predators wanted to go for a more impactful player such as Nikolaj Ehlers or William Nylander, they could do it but would have to part with at least one of Colton Sissons and Eeli Tolvanen, likely both.

With how their top six is constructed, it seems like Philip Tomasino would fit very well on the second line, so there is next to no chance a blockbuster move happens.

If the Predators do make another move, it is very unlikely that they get a player who can singlehandedly elevate them to a Stanley Cup contender, but the best teams in the league are those that can consistently roll four effective lines. Taking advantage of the opportunity to do that would be very much worthwhile if the risk is not too high.