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.