Predators History: David Poile’s Staredown with Philly for Shea Weber

If you missed my introduction with Predlines the first time around that’s ok, but I’m new to the Nashville Predators hockey scene.

Being a Philadelphia Flyers fan, we had one dealing in particular that always stood out; the Shea Weber standoff. I didn’t get to cover it from the Nashville Predators’ side previously and now I’m looking at it from the other side of the coin.

For a few days, Weber was the Flyers $100 million dollar man. The Predators, led by then the only General Manager in the franchise’s history, David Polie had a massive decision to make.

As Polie has moved on from the GM role, some trades and moves are sure to be tied to his legacy as the winningest GM in the history of the NHL. The move he stopped from happening might be his very best.

How the Flyers Almost Landed Shea Weber from the Nashville Predators

We’re back in July of 2012. Polie is staring down a lockout and losing a laundry list of players from all positions. Gone already or on their way out the door were Ryan Suter, Alexander Radulov, Jordin Tootoo, Anders Lindback, and Andrei Kostitsyn.

This was set to be a radically different Nashville Predators team. Then chaos burst as the Philadelphia Flyers and GM Paul Holmgren said screw it and drove a Brinks truck through Shea Weber’s living room.

After trade talks stalled amid the mass exodus from the Predators, the Flyers grew frustrated and decided they’d go ahead and break a cardinal rule. They fired off an offer sheet to a restricted free agent.

Sure it had happened before. The most notable example was in 2007 when Thomas Vanek signed a deal with Edmonton for $50 million dollars over seven years. The Sabers matched the offer and Vanek stayed with the franchise.

They had just lost Chris Drury and Daniel Briere to free agency and could ill afford to lose a budding star in Vanek. The Predators found themselves in a similar situation with Weber, and the pressure was even higher.

The contract facing Weber was for 14 years and $110 million dollars. He signed it, and honestly, who wouldn’t? The Flyers were a big market team looking to make a push, and the Predators weren’t as consistent as they would soon become.

Weber did put the Predators and Polie in quite a predicament. Sure, Weber projected out like a franchise defender but was he worth the richest in NHL history in terms of total money, money per season, and length?

Would the fans stand for letting a fan favorite go after watching their other #1 defender go? Could fans stomach a lockout based on the crazy contracts that would soon become illegally front-loaded?

How David Poile Managed to Retain Weber and Keep Him from Philly

To really make this bold offer more clear from the Predators’ point of view, at the time Frank Seravalli put it into pure numbers on how much Weber was worth to match the offer sheet.

“To put that in perspective, 16.5 percent of Nashville’s entire franchise net worth ($163M as valuated by Forbes Magazine in 2011) would be paid out in less than a calendar year by the small-market team.” –Frank Seravalli on Preds Pushing to Keep Weber

Some say Polie blinked, some say he made the right call. Ultimately he matched the offer and Weber was a Norris-caliber defender from 2012 till the Predators traded him in 2016 for P.K Subban, who would churn out a few All-Star-caliber years before he was traded as well.

It ended up being a relatively even trade, as the aging Weber played out his final years admirably, and he’s no longer able to suit up today.

Instead, the Coyotes (aka contract graveyard) will dole out Weber’s dollars until 2026.

Polie deftly managed to get out from Weber’s huge deal into Subban’s slightly more manageable deal, and then flip Subban so that they had the money to make the Matt Duchene signing and the Colton Sissons deal.

Barry Trotz will do a heck of a job as GM. There is little doubt of that. Yet it seems unlikely that he might ever have to face a decision like Polie did during his tenure.