Nashville Predators 2023 NHL Free Agency Tracker: Staying Aggressive

It’s already been a wild offseason for the Nashville Predators, and they’re apparently not done as NHL Free Agency opens and two signings already happening.

The 2023 NHL Free Agency market is officially open, and the Nashville Predators currently have a projected $14.466 million in cap space according to PuckPedia after reportedly making two huge signings in quick fashion: 

Nashville Predators Quickly Make Two Major FA Signings

The Nashville Predators have signed 33-year-old defenseman Luke Schenn to a 3-year deal worth $2.75M AAV.

Schenn has 15 years of NHL experience but has never been an offensively prolific player. Instead, he’s always been known as an absolutely brick wall defensively with over 3,100 hits and over 1,400 blocks.

This adds an unexpected wrinkle to the Nashville Predators defensive core that already includes veterans Roman Josi, Ryan McDonagh and Tyson Barrie.

Jeremy Lauzon was a mainstay on the third defensive pairing, while Dante Fabbro also still fits into the equation.

Add on Alexandre Carrier who just received a qualifying offer from Nashville as an RFA, and you suddenly have a very crowded position to sort out. Definitely a head-scratching signing by Nashville, but we’ll see how it plays out.

Furthermore, the Nashville Predators have also been reported to have signed arguably a much bigger signing, and that’s Ryan O’Reilly at four years for $4.5M AAV.

Another signing that kind of comes out of left field, especially considering that Barry Trotz was vocal about not being crazy about the free agency market this offseason. Perhaps he was playing as the shrewd operator.  It certainly seems that way.

O’Reilly affectively comes in as the Matt Duchene replacement, who was shockingly bought out by the Nashville Predators on Saturday for his remaining three years. It opened up some short-term cap space, and made it pretty clear that Trotz had a bigger plan in motion in his first offseason as a NHL General Manager.

No doubt, one thing about O’Reilly is he’s a culture guy that will be a great mentor for the younger players looking to carve out long-term careers in the NHL. I’m thinking about players like Cody Glass, Thomas Novak, Juuso Parssinen and Philip Tomasino.

With the additions of Schenn and O’Reilly, the Nashville Predators add a couple seasoned veterans to what is a really young core of players, especially among the forwards.

The O’Reilly addition makes sense and adds some veteran leadership lost with Duchene, but the Schenn signing has me perplexed. Will be interesting to hear what Trotz says about his thinking on both additions.

And now later after the O’Reilly and Schenn signings, the Predators staying right in the thick of it with another addition.

Gustav Nyquist, another 33-year-old veteran who has over 700 games of NHL experience, is joining the Nashville Predators on a two-year, $3.185 AAV per SportsNet.

Nyquist had a rough 2022-23, but is a former 60-point scorer in 2018-19 and will add even more veteran experience to a locker room that had gotten extremely young after the Ryan Johansen trade and the Duchene buyout.

The Predators have essentially replaced the voids of Johansen and Duchene, and Nyquist will look to revitalize his career after joining his fourth team in four seasons.

Other Notable NHL Free Agency Signings

• Blacker Wheeler is going to the New York Rangers on a 1-year, $800,000 contract with bonuses, per Dan Rosen.
• Johnathan Quick is heading to the New York Rangers as well on 1-year deal, per NHL.com.
• Radko Gudas is going to the Anaheim Ducks on a 3-year, $4M per Elliotte Friedman
• Joonas Korpisalo has signed with the Ottawa Senators for 5-year deal, $4M per Sportsnet.
• Ian Cole heading to the Vancouver Canucks. One year, $3M per Sportsnet. 
• Dmitry Orlov is going to the Carolina Hurricanes on a 2-year, $7.75M deal per Chris Johnston of TSN Sports. 

We will continue updating this post as the day rolls on.