2023 NHL Trade Deadline: Grading Every Nashville Predators Trade

Nashville Predators Acquire 2nd Rd. Pick in 2024 for Niederreiter

To get things going, and it turned out just to be an appetizer to the trade madness, Nashville traded away Nino Niederreiter after just 56 games in a Predators uniform. He was a free agency pickup in the 2022 offseason and got a lot of praise at the time.

I don’t think this was an indictment on how bad Niederreiter was for the Predators. It was purely a decision, and the first decision, by the Predators front office to give in to being sellers.

Getting a 2nd-round pick in 2024 is decent value for the Predators, but nothing groundbreaking. No one is beating down the door to acquire Niederreiter, so jumping on a 2nd-round pick was your only option.

Moving Niederreiter out makes more room for the bright young talent of the future to get valuable NHL playing time to close this season out over the last 20-plus games.

Niederreiter has one more season left on his $4M AAV contract to shifts to Winnipeg. He should provide them so veteran quality depth in their pursuit for the playoffs, which low and behold they have slumped to the wildcard and the postseason isn’t a lock for them.

From Nashville’s standpoint, this is a fairly above average return to be pleased with. You give a 2nd-round draft pick around a 15 to 20 percent chance to eventually make the NHL. I’m not overly joyed by this trade, but it’s fine to get the sell-off going.

Predators Get a Haul of Draft Picks for Jeannot

The trade rumors for Tanner Jeannot were boiling over as the Nashville Predators were getting ready to face the Arizona Coyotes. Leading up to warm-ups, Jeannot was benched for trade related reasons and quickly thereafter traded to the Tampa Bay Lightning.

This was hard to swallow even for the Predators fans who were all on board with selling everyone. Jeannot was beloved and embodied the identity and culture of how the Predators want to play.

When this trade happened, everyone started taking notice that the Predators were for real about being “open for business”. It sent shockwaves around the NHL trade landscape.

This comes down to a offer that’s too valuable to refuse for the Predators. The Lightning really, really wanted Jeannot to offer that many draft picks and also a young defenseman in Cal Foote who still has promise to grow into an everyday starter for the blueline.

In reality, it’s the simple case of two franchises being in very different situations. One one hand you have the Lightning in “win now” mode and with a Stanley Cup window that is still very much wide open, and on the other hand you have a Predators team that clearly has to reconfigure this roster from the top down.

I love this trade for Nashville because you’re acquiring so much draft capital to work with. You can use these picks to facilitate a future trade and it gives new GM Barry Trotz a lot to work with. Like taking a new leadership position at any job and the boss immediately gives you a massive budget to get the tools you need to be successful.

I’m not going to give this a perfect grade because there’s still that possibility that Jeannot returns back to his 2021-22 rookie season form and becomes a regular 20-plus goal scorer in a much better system with Tampa.

Again, Nashville just couldn’t turn this down. Hopefully Foote becomes the effective replacement for Mark Borowiecki as the physical grinder and rotational third-pairing defenseman. He didn’t look too bad in his Predators debut against the Penguins with one hit and two blocks in 12:14 of ice time.

If anything, this trade can end up being a win for both sides when we look back on it in three years.

A Home Run Trade for the Predators, Even if it Hurts

No matter how painful this one is, and will be for a long time, the Nashville Predators hit one out of the park with dealing Mattias Ekholm to the Edmonton Oilers.

First off, let me get this out of the way; I can’t stress enough how difficult it was seeing Ekholm walk into the Oilers locker room with his Predators bag of gear still strapped over his shoulder:

https://twitter.com/EdmontonOilers/status/1631056095325323265?s=20

In the short term this is great for Edmonton. Ekholm is going to instantly make them a better team and a more solid contender for the Stanley Cup. However, they are taking a risk with Ekholm’s contract that still has three more years left.

This could get dicey for Edmonton is year three and four of this remaining contract, but much like the Tampa Bay Lightning and Jeannot, the Oilers are in “win now” mode as are most buyers at the trade deadline. And the Nashville Predators front office is taking advantage of that seller’s market.

For the Predators, they get Tyson Barrie, who David Poile says will fill a major need of getting more offense out of their defensemen. Maybe Barrie gets flipped eventually, but as of now, look for him to boost the Nashville power play.

Even if you end up trading Barrie away next season for something bigger, it’s still a great addition in exchange for Ekholm.

Arguably the best part of this trade is Nashville acquires another 1st-round draft pick in this year’s upcoming draft, which is being held in Nashville. That gives them 13 draft picks in 2023, and two in the first round. Tons of leverage come draft day.

The Predators also flipped a 6th-round pick in 2024 for a 4th-round pick in the trade. And then there’s prospect Reid Schaefer, who has low potential for the NHL currently from a lot of analysts:

It made total sense to trade Ekholm in this market, and overall this is an outstanding return from the Oilers that justifies parting ways with such an key piece to Nashville Predators hockey for so long. Retaining the $250,000 is the only reason I don’t give this a perfect grade.

Preds Send Granny to Pittsburgh Like a Thief in the Night

It is quite humorous to see Pittsburgh Penguins fans lose their minds over sending Nashville a 2nd-round pick for the offensively slumping Mikael Granlund. I don’t blame them.

This is just cunning work by Poile and Trotz to find a trade partner for Granlund, who let’s be honest, just wasn’t working out with the Predators anymore. I just had my doubts that they were going to be able to find anything more than a mid to late draft pick.

Getting another 2nd-round pick, and in this upcoming draft in Nashville, is huge. And they move another hefty contract off the books with Granlund’s $5M AAV that has another two years left on it.

I don’t understand this at all for the Penguins, but hey, I’m not complaining. This leaves space for Luke Evangelista to maybe stick around a little longer, and also should ensure that Philip Tomasino remains in the NHL as well.

For whatever reason, Granlund just fell off a cliff on the offensive end. Most notably just refusing to shoot in high-danger scoring areas. Even in his last game with the Predators he was gun shy.

One thing that is going to hurt for the Predators is losing Granlund’s presence on the penalty kill. Couple that with losing Jeannot, Niederreiter and Ekholm, and the penalty kill is probably going to go through some hard times over the rest of this season.

However, in the long-term with all of this draft capital and salary cap space created, this has been a glorious lead-up to the trade deadline for the Nashville Predators. They identified their objective as sellers and didn’t shy away from it.

Final Conclusion and What’s Next

Okay, so now to round this out with the speculation of trading away Juuse Saros. You’re still not going to convince me that this is a wise move unless I see a generational centerman in return.

Franchise goalies don’t just fall out of the sky, and I’ve always said that the Predators should always count their blessings for getting gifted with Pekka Rinne for all of those years, and now Saros.

Rolling the dice on Yaroslav Askarov living up to the hype in a few years scares me, as does relying on some unnamed goaltender to be the bridge until Askarov is fully ready to be the everyday starter. Is it really Kevin Lankinen? Maybe, but it still terrifies me to part ways with Saros.

We will see if the Nashville Predators have one more major splash left by dealing Saros or someone else. Overall, it’s been a very productive few days of building for the future.