Nashville Predators Wild Offseason Continues with Matt Duchene Buyout

Most of us thought that Matt Duchene would be one of the safer players on the Nashville Predators during their rebuild, mostly due to his contract and his actual desire to stay.

Even with a few years of really not playing up to his contract, it was believed that Duchene  would be great to have in the locker room with his veteran experience and style of play.

This comes less than a week after the Predators traded away Ryan Johansen, the other infamous $8M veteran, to the Colorado Avalanche in what was essentially just a cap dump as well.

Who knows what went into the decision making, but in what can be described as an utterly shocking move, Duchene is no longer a Predator. He was bought out of his contract early this morning, ending his time in Nashville after four fairly tumultuous years.

Duchene had three years left on his contract, and now will be on the books for six more years as a result of this decision. Let’s just say that the full details are less than ideal.

Buying out Duchene makes little sense on surface for Nashville Predators

Let me just start off by saying holy heck what a grenade Barry Trotz just dropped on this franchise today. Duchene was giving the Predators every reason to keep him, with his experience and improved leadership, his genuine desire to be there, his obvious skill, and lack of experience around the rest of the roster.

It seemed that he would be the ideal guy to have as one of the anchors for the up and coming young core, and that it would help to build an inviting and attractive culture for the team moving forward.

Trotz just told us that none of that was enough reason to keep Duchene. Once again, this is a cold business and who knows what other factors went into the decision, but we can conclude from this that absolutely nobody is safe as a new era of Predators hockey is ushered in.

Now as far as the actual decision impacting the team structure, this move really is puzzling to say the least.

The Predators just created a huge void in their top six and got absolutely nothing in return. If we thought last year was rough in terms of having spots to fill in the event of injuries, then just wait for this year.

They also might have created about $5M more of cap space for the coming year, but already had a lot and really did not need anymore.

Additionally, they now have over $8.5M of dead cap this year, will have a little over $11.5M next year, and will have a little over $8.5M the year after. That is not to mention the remaining dead cap — albeit not as much — that they will have for the three years after, and at some point it can become a bit excessive.

To me, this move can only mean one of two things. Either the Predators are dead set on having a poor record for the upcoming season and want to secure a high pick, or another move is coming that we do not know about.

It is hard to not say the latter at this point given the state of the roster. Yes that is the obviously more exciting answer, but if the Predators were to make no more moves from here on out, they would have to dive into their preferred reserve players or Milwaukee roster.

Oh and that is without a single injury or lineup substitution for any reason.

Trotz seems to be planning on something right now, and it almost has to be something exact because they did not need to buy out Duchene to make another move. Who knows what it is, but I think everyone is thrown off by this decision.