Top 5 bargain contracts Nashville Predators have in 2024 offseason
By Chad Minton
#4: Gustav Nyquist, 1 year left at $3.185 million AAV
I must admit that when Nyquist was signed in free agency in the 2023 offseason, I had a hard time feeling any sort of way about it. Didn't necessarily hate it, but certainly didn't see a career year on the horizon for him.
Even more so, I didn't see Nyquist becoming a mainstay on the top line with Filip Forsberg and Ryan O'Reilly to form the most offensively productive top line in Predators history. Better even than the infamous "JoFA" line in 2017 and 2018.
Nyquist has one year left at this modest AAV of just north of $3 million per year. He can be offered in a trade if Trotz wants to go big game hunting, or he can hold onto Nyquist for one more year at this bargain deal and hope the top line can replicate what they did in 2023-24.
The Predators have just $36, 464,643 invested in their forwards, per CapFriendly. Only five teams have fewer dollars tied up into their forwards. That's 44.3 percent of their total cap hit, and on the flip side, they have the third-most dollars invested in their defensemen.
All of this to say, is Trotz about to make a dramatic shift into spending more money on the forwards and finding more offense? The Predators and the Canucks were the two worst offensive teams in the first round and they just happened to play each other. If the Predators could've had even an average offensive output, not even great, then they probably advance past the first round this year.
Now where does Nyquist fit into this. If the Predators keep him for another year, he'll remain a bargain at his current deal, but then he's a free agent and another year older in 2025. He'll be 35 before the 2024-25 regular season begins.
The Predators might be best served to look for a trade partner for the aging Nyquist and get ahead of the curve of what could be a dip in production next season. It shouldn't be a hard contract to move at such a low price.