Matt Duchene goes down as the most controversial addition in Preds history
To no fault of his own, and more at the fault of front office leadership, Matt Duchene is arguably the most polarizing player in Nashville Predators history. From the beginning, fans were hard on the criticism of Duchene and expected fast results.
Duchene was signed on July 1, 2019 to a mammoth $56 million contract by the Predators. The Predators had just suffered a demoralizing first round exit to the Dallas Stars during a time when many fans still thought the Stanley Cup windown might be open.
That really was the beginning of the end of the David Poile era and for the Predators to head back to the drawing board. Many were then calling for a total rebuild and to start moving away from expensive veteran contract and invest more in the youth and draft development.
But the dismay of many diehard fans, the Predators took a home run swing with Duchene at $8 million per year for seven years. He was never able to fully live up to that lofty contract, although he did have spurts and made his peak in 2021-22 with 43 goals and 43 assists.
Just this past season Forsberg surpassed Duchene for the single season goal record with 48. But even with the stat padding, Duchene never got the full support of the fanbase. The fact is he did do a disappearing act in the playoffs with the exception of a game-winning overtime goal against the Hurricanes in the 2021 playoffs.
Aside from that, in total Duchene managed just nine points in 14 playoff games with Nashville. Despite that, and even being put on the chopping block of the expansion draft unprotected list, it was thought that Duchene was here to stay for a while. Viewed as untradeable thanks to his contract.
The Predators took the shocking route of a buyout, and Duchene managed to revitalize his career with the Dallas Stars. To this day I still don't fully understand why the Predators chose the buyout alternative, and now they'll be paying Duchene $5,555,556 to not be playing hockey for them in 2024-25.
Overall I think Duchene caught a lot of unfair criticism, and most of that should be redirected towards David Poile's decision to overpay for him in the first place. You can also direct some of that blame towards an ineffective offensive head coach in John Hynes.
I'm sure I missed some other notable offseason additions in Predators history, so reach out to us on X and tell us who we missed @PredlinesNSH @chad_minton!