The Nashville Predators have made another trade. The Predators have sent Juuso Parssinen and a 2026 seventh-round pick to the Colorado Avalanche for Ondrej Pavel and a 2027 3rd round pick.
This is now the fourth trade that Predators General Manager Barry Trotz has made since the season started. With the season slipping out of reach, Trotz has sent another young player who seemingly couldn't put it together out on the block.
Parssinen was at one point a diamond in the rough. A seventh-round pick (210th overall) in 2019, he made his way to the league in the 2022-23 season. He notched an impressive 25 points (six goals, 19 assists) in 45 games in a season where the Predators were not very good.
There was an assumption that Parssinen would take the next leap with Head Coach Andrew Brunette. That never happened. He played 44 games but only managed 12 points (8 goals 4 assists) and really seemed lost.
Parssinen had a few stints in the AHL where he proved to be very successful. In the 2022-23 season he played 10 games and managed nine points. In the 2023-24 season down in Milwaukee through 36 games he put up 25 points, and had another nine over a 14-game playoff run.
Parssinen is clearly an NHL player, but this year through 15 games he has just five points, but hasn't been able to string together effective play, apart from a four-game point streak to start November. A victim of the dreaded healthy scratch, Parssinen playing any NHL games as a seventh-round pick is basically gravy.
The deal ships him out and a late round pick to go with him. It might constitute giving up on another young player for not much return, but third-round picks can have a pretty decent value. We'll see in 2027 if they can manage to turn it into a player, or if this bonus pick ends up in a trade somewhere else.
Who is Ondrej Pavel from the Avalanche?
The player back from the Avalanche is Ondrej Pavel. The Czech player starred at Minnesota State before jumping into the Colorado Avalanche system as an undrafted free agent. He was also on the Czech 2020 World Junior Championships team. He has played mostly in the AHL for the Colorado Eagles. He played two games last season for the Avalanche without registering a point.
In the AHL, Pavel has played 77 games over parts of three seasons and recorded 12 points (6 goals, 6 assists) during that time. He's not lighting the world on fire but does have good size at 6'2 205 pounds. In college he was known as a shut down center and was often deployed to try and keep the opponents best players off of the board. He began to contribute more offensively towards the end of his college career.
Now if Pavel can continue to improve he can become a valuable cog in the Milwaukee machine. If he improves a lot, then perhaps he can turn into a bottom six player for the Predators. As the deal stands, Parssinen is another flamed out project, but a 2027 3rd rounder back is a fair return, but the dominos continue to fall for the Predators as the struggles seem to never stop.