It was almost a given that the Nashville Predators were going to make another trade or two before the trade deadline on Friday, and they did that on Wednesday night. The first trade they made this past Saturday made lots of sense, the most recent one, not nearly as much.
The Predators traded Tommy Novak and Luke Schenn for Michael Bunting and a 2026 fourth round pick, and in all honesty, it is a really confusing move.
🔄TRADE:
— Nashville Predators (@PredsNHL) March 6, 2025
We have acquired forward Michael Bunting and a fourth-round pick in the 2026 NHL Draft from Pittsburgh in exchange for forward Tommy Novak and defenseman Luke Schenn.
Full details » https://t.co/BohxyGlgDg pic.twitter.com/2qTTJCxVNe
The confusing part is not the two players the Predators traded, Schenn was near the top of the team's potential trade list, and Novak was having a disappointing year. The issue is what they got in return from the Penguins, and not mainly on paper, but given the circumstances around the team right now and moving forward.
Trade for Michael Bunting does not accomplish much for Nashville Predators right now
When you talk about this trade, you can boil it down to two swaps: Schenn for a fourth round pick and Novak for Bunting. The former of the two is actually a massive win for the Predators.
Schenn was a great culture guy and showed on the Predators why he is so respected in the NHL, but he had serious on ice deficiencies that were hard to ignore. He was incredibly slow and not at all offensively inclined, which was especially detrimental in Andrew Brunette's system.
He also carries a contract that was hurting the Predators, and trading him would have helped their situation, even if it was for nothing much. The fact that you can essentially say Schenn was traded for a fourth round pick is a massive win for the team, especially with them retaining no salary.
On the flip side, flipping Novak for Bunting is simply underwhelming. Yes, Novak was having a disappointing year when it was really critical for him to step up, he still showed encouraging signs in his first two seasons in the league.
He was certainly not a must-keep for the future, but not someone you were going to want to trade for a low return. Especially with how good his deeper numbers are, even this year, there was hope that he could bounce back, at least hope enough to ride it out with him unless a team would overpay.
Bunting's fit with the Nashville Predators lineup
The swap of Novak for Bunting is not something that is likely to help their forward core and overall team for the present or future. He is a 29-year-old who is a fringe second liner and does a lot of his best work at the net front, which is the opposite of what the Predators need in terms of personnel fit and team timeline.
Bunting is also signed to a contract that runs through next year, and then he is an unrestricted free agent. So it is very possible that the Predators plan to trade him at around this time next year, but they do not know for sure if they will, and are they convinced that they will get a good return for him then if they even do?
On top of all of that, he recently had an appendectomy for which he is on injured reserve indefinitely, so who knows when or even if the Predators will get him on the ice this season. It really is not as much about Bunting as an individual player, but he is not the ideal replacement for Novak, and it makes you wonder exactly Barry Trotz's thought process is,
It is worth noting that the Predators saved almost $2M in cap space with this move, and the essential Schenn swap makes it so that it is not awful. But they should have tried to acquire more draft picks if anything else for Novak, I just do not see a way in which the Bunting acquisition ends up benefitting this team.