The 2025 NHL Trade Deadline has passed us by, and the Nashville Predators did very little to give fans any sort of optimism for the future or to really understand what the long-term plan even is.
General Manager Barry Trotz did sell a little bit, but the compensation was minimal and underwhelming to put it mildly. Here are the transactions the Predators made over the last week before the trade deadline hit.
Poor asset management, and nothing significant in return to shape Nashville Predators future
Luke Schenn, Tommy Novak and Gustav Nyquist were all on the trade watch list for the Predators, so it's not a surprise any of them are now on new teams. However, the return for Schenn and Novak is what is hitting Trotz hard right now.
The Penguins flipped Schenn for a 2nd-round pick in 2026 while tacking on a 4th-round pick in 2027. This makes Trotz look bad with his asset management, or mismanagement if you will.
Same for Novak. Many are out on Novak more so than myself, but whatever your thoughts on Novak are, getting Michael Bunting is strange to say the least. Perhaps Trotz is banking on a bounce-back 2025-26 campaign for Bunting so that he can deal him at the 2026 trade deadline.
More on the Penguins connection with the Predators, Trotz also looks really bad with the Penguins getting a 3rd-round pick out of Cody Glass to the New Jersey Devils. Again, just horrendous mismanagement of his assets that he really has nothing to show for it now.
The Predators also made a couple minor waiver claims to fill roster spots due to needing to send guys back to the AHL for the playoff run the Milwaukee Admirals are on. They claimed winger Jakub Vrana from the Capitals and defenseman Jordan Oesterle from the Boston Bruins.
Vrana is a former back-to-back 20-plus goal scorer so who knows, maybe he finishes the season strong for Nashville and does enough to earn himself a new contract from Trotz in the offseason.
The best asset the Predators got from this trade deadline is the second-round draft pick from the Nyquist trade. Bunting is just a stop-gap option and it will take a while to understand if that move will mean something valuable in the distant future.
Preds retain Sissons, O'Reilly, McCarron
Some other trade assets the I thought the Predators could've more aggressively pursued a trade with was first foremost Colton Sissons. He could've fetched maybe a decent prospect to work with and certainly a third or second-round draft pick. But if Trotz's plan is to try to run it back in 2025-26 with mostly this same current roster, then that's why you keep Sissons around. It just doesn't make sense to me right now.
Michael McCarron had an opportunity to get traded with his big body, physical frame that can be beneificial for the playoff grind. It wouldn't have been a huge return so it's not all that impactful for me either way.
And of course there's Ryan O'Reilly who was getting a lot of buzz within the 24 hours leading up to the trade deadline. There was rumblings that the Toronto Maple Leafs wanted him, but O'Reilly didn't want the Toronto reunion. The New Jersey Devils were also apparently interested, along with probably a few other teams.
O'Reilly was your best trade piece, but if he was loyal to Nashville and again Trotz is more interested in reloading for 2025-26, then O'Reilly wasn't getting dealt unless it was a ridiculous overpay. It never materialized.
Still, when you look at where the Predators are at in the standings near the bottom of the entire NHL and this is how they chose to sell. And worse off, Trotz's post trade deadline comments preaching "patience" will only drive fans closer towards the edge of the cliff. That is for the ones that haven't already jumped.
Seriously, I don't know where the Predators go from here. With 21 games left in their catastrophic 2024-25 season, they're in a lose-lose situation. They find a hot streak and show some promise and they wreck their draft positioning, which is a draft class that is viewed as very top heavy. They keep losing, then the vibes in the locker room will just get worse and worse. I don't see an easy way out of this until we see what happens in offseason free agency.
Trotz has also commented on Head Coach Andrew Brunette's status, which seems pretty safe at least going into 2025-26 while also saying that for the remainder of 2024-25 he wants the team to "establish an identity".