- Predators defenseman Alexandre Carrier is set to hit unrestricted free agency in July but Nick Kieser of 102.5 The Game notes that there was a bit of dialogue between the two sides about an extension earlier in the season and that his desire is to remain in Nashville. The 27-year-old had a breakout year in 2021-22 and has been an important part of their back end since then. Carrier had 20 points and 137 blocks in 73 games with the Preds this season and is well-positioned to receive a multi-year deal this summer with a raise from the $2.5MM he made on his set-to-expire deal.
Predators Rumors
Predators Reassign Spencer Stastney
The Predators have reassigned defenseman Spencer Stastney to AHL Milwaukee, general manager Barry Trotz announced Thursday.
Stastney wasn’t sent down with three other fringe players last weekend, likely because he was still rehabbing the upper-body injury he sustained on a hit from Canucks forward Dakota Joshua in Game 3 of Nashville’s first-round loss. Today’s move indicates he’s been cleared to return.
The 24-year-old graduated from rookie status this season, skating in a career-high 20 regular season games with the Preds. A Nashville fifth-round pick in 2018, Stastney is wrapping up his second full professional season after finishing his collegiate career at Notre Dame in 2022.
It was a solid run for the 6’0″, 183-lb left-shot defender. He was passable at worst in his limited role, compiling two goals and two assists with a +9 rating while averaging 15:59 per game. Advanced metrics painted an optimistic picture of Stastney’s game, logging a 51.9 CF% and 59.3 xGF% at even strength.
Stastney played a handful of games for the Preds early on in the season but remained in Milwaukee for most of the year until a mid-March recall. After a three-month minor-league assignment, he sustained an upper-body injury in his first game back in the NHL but returned to play in Nashville’s final 10 games of the regular season.
That earned him a spot in head coach Andrew Brunette’s Game 1 lineup against Vancouver ahead of the more experienced Tyson Barrie and Dante Fabbro. Before leaving the series due to the Joshua hit, Stastney had a +1 rating, one shot on goal and one block against the Canucks.
Stastney now returns to Milwaukee for some Calder Cup Playoff action after posting five goals, 20 points and a +27 rating in 44 regular-season games there. The Admirals trail 2-1 in their best-of-five division semifinal series against Texas, with Stastney expected to draw in for a must-win Game 4 on Friday. He’s in need of a new contract this summer, with his two-year entry-level contract set to expire and make him a restricted free agent.
Kasper Kulonummi Signs With Kiekko-Espoo In Finland
- Predators prospect Kasper Kulonummi has signed with Kiekko-Espoo in Finland’s top division, per a team announcement on their Instagram page. The 20-year-old blueliner was picked 84th overall two years ago and had his first taste of extended Liiga action this year, getting into 40 games where he had four assists. His new team has been promoted from the second-tier Mestis level so Kulonummi will likely be earmarked for a bigger role in 2024-25, the first of the two-year contract he signed.
Predators Notes: Saros, Tomasino, Forsberg
Nashville Predators general manager Barry Trotz told reporters today that the team will engage with goaltender Juuse Saros this summer in an effort to ink the netminder to a contract extension (according to Robby Stanley of NHL.com). The 29-year-old has just one year remaining on the four-year deal he signed back in August 2021, that deal turned out to be a massive bargain for the Predators as Saros has been playing under a $5MM average annual value.
Saros is eligible to sign a new deal on July 1st and was the subject of trade rumors for much of this past season. The chatter appeared to get to him as Saros’s save percentage fell to a career-low .906 and his save percentage ballooned to a career-worst 2.86.
In other Nashville Predators notes:
- Michael Gallagher of Nashville Hockey Now is reporting that Predators head coach Andrew Brunette had harsh words for forward Philip Tomasino saying, “If he continues to have the skill without the work, I don’t think he has a chance to play with us next year.” It’s not the first time that Brunette has been publicly critical of Tomasino’s play as he had strong words in February as well. Tomasino was a healthy scratch frequently this season, at one point sitting in the press box for 11 of 52 games. The 24th pick in the 2019 NHL entry draft has been a decent offensive contributor at the NHL level registering 23 goals and 47 assists in 148 games but his overall game has led to criticism from Nashville’s coaching staff and ultimately caused the 22-year-old to be shuttled back and forth between the NHL and AHL. It will be interesting to see if Tomasino remains with Nashville long-term or if the Predators opt to move on from the talented youngster.
- Alex Daugherty of The Nashville Tennessean writes that Predators star forward Filip Forsberg has revealed the ailment that plagued him through the second half of the season and into the playoffs. Forsberg reportedly dealt with a bone bruise on his ankle that cut his leg and made it difficult for him to wear skates. The injury happened when the 29-year-old blocked a shot in mid-February, and it required stitches to repair the skin. While the outside of the wound healed, the bruised bone underneath was the issue that caused Forsberg the most problems. The injury was never severe enough to keep Forsberg out of the lineup and he was a key catalyst to Nashville’s 18-game point streak that thrust them back into the playoff picture. Forsberg posted six points in six playoff games and had a career year in the regular season tallying 48 goals and 46 assists for a career-high 94 points.
Predators Assign Three To AHL
While the Predators were eliminated last night by Vancouver, the season isn’t quite over for three players just yet. The team announced that they’ve assigned forward Juuso Parssinen, defenseman Kevin Gravel, and goaltender Gustavs Grigals to AHL Milwaukee.
Parssinen split this season between the Predators and Admirals. With Nashville, the 23-year-old wasn’t able to match the output from a year ago, dropping to just eight goals and four assists in 44 games; in 2022-23, he had six goals and 19 helpers in 45 contests. Parssinen also got into one game against the Canucks in the first round and was held off the scoresheet. The pending restricted free agent had a fairly productive year in the minors, however, notching seven goals and 18 assists in 36 games.
As for Gravel, he was just brought back up as injury depth following the injury to Spencer Stastney earlier in the series. The 32-year-old has 132 career NHL appearances under his belt but played exclusively in the AHL this season, picking up a goal and nine assists in 63 games. Gravel signed a two-year extension back in January, meaning he’ll be patrolling the back end in Milwaukee for the foreseeable future.
Grigals, meanwhile, served as the third-string emergency backup in the playoffs. His minor league deal was converted to an NHL agreement back in March, likely for that very reason, allowing Yaroslav Askarov and Troy Grosenick to remain with Milwaukee for the playoffs. The 25-year-old pending RFA will likely serve the same third-string role for the balance of the AHL postseason.
Snapshots: Smith, Schenn, Second Round, DiPietro
Forward Cole Smith was held out of Friday night’s Game 6 lineup due to a lower-body injury, per the team (Twitter link). Smith was replaced by Juuso Parssinen making his Stanley Cup Playoffs debut. Parssinen took on a larger role than Smith’s received, stepping into the team’s second line and bumping Mark Jankowski down the lineup. Only three Predators forwards, including Smith, have failed to record at least one point through their first five playoff games. Parssinen will need to quickly join that list, with Nashville down 3-2 in the series.
The Predators also welcomed Luke Schenn back to the lineup, after he missed Game 5 with illness, shares The Athletic’s Thomas Drance (Twitter link). Schenn’s absence made way for Tyson Barrie to return to the lineup. Barrie brought speed and tempo to the lineup, even recording an assist in Nashville’s eventual 2-1 win. But with elimination so close, the Predators opted for the more physical and defensive presence of Schenn.
Other notes from around the league:
- The NHL has announced the start times for the Second Round’s Eastern Conference matchups. The round will begin with Game 1 between the Carolina Hurricanes and New York Rangers on Sunday, while the Florida Panthers will take on the winner of Toronto versus Boston on Monday. Start times for each of these games haven’t yet been announced. This schedule marks a quick turnaround for Boston or Toronto, while each of Carolina, New York, and Florida will have at least five days off.
- The Boston Bruins have returned goaltender Michael DiPietro to the minor leagues, per NHL.com’s Mark Divver (Twitter link). DiPietro has served as Boston’s emergency third-string goalie for a handful of playoff games, though he’s yet to play his first game as a Boston Bruin. He instead spent all season with the AHL’s Providence Bruins, where he recorded 18 wins and a .918 save percentage in 30 appearances. He’ll now return to a prime role for Providence, as they prepare to take on one of Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, Charlotte, or Hartford in the Atlantic Division’s Semifinals.
NHL Announces Finalists For 2024 Jack Adams Award
The Jets’ Rick Bowness, the Predators’ Andrew Brunette and the Canucks’ Rick Tocchet are this year’s finalists for the Jack Adams Award, the league announced Friday. The honor is given to the head coach who “contributed the most to his team’s success.”
We’ll have a first-time winner for the fifth year in a row. Last year’s recipient was Bruins bench boss Jim Montgomery, who led Boston to the best regular season in league history (.823 points percentage) since the Canadiens’ 60-8-12 (.825 points percentage) run in 1976-77.
Bowness, 69, is by far the most veteran option among the finalists. A good portion of his 30-plus years behind an NHL bench has been spent as an assistant, but he’s still managed 310 wins and 803 regular-season games coached as a head coach. After guiding Winnipeg to only its second 100-point season in franchise history with a 52-24-6 record, Bowness is the first Jets/Thrashers coach to be nominated for the Jack Adams in franchise history.
Brunette is also gunning for his first Coach of the Year honor despite holding less than two full seasons as a head coach. Both have yielded great results, though, guiding the Panthers to the 2022 Presidents’ Trophy after taking over for John Quenneville early in the season. He was back in a head coaching role this year, taking over behind the Predators’ bench and guiding what many viewed to be a fringe team to a 99-point season, including a franchise-record 18-game point streak from Feb. 17 to March 26. Nashville’s 47-30-5 record placed them in the first wild-card spot in the Western Conference, returning to postseason play after missing out in 2023.
The 60-year-old Tocchet rightfully gets a nod here in his first full season as head coach of the Canucks. Vancouver was arguably the league’s most surprising team this season, especially considering their level of dominance. They weren’t just a playoff team like some had hoped for at the beginning of the year – they were one of the best in the league for long stretches, finishing with a 50-23-9 record and their first division title in 11 years. The Canucks’ 109 points were their most since hitting 111 in the 2011-12 campaign.
Predators Recall Kevin Gravel
The Predators recalled defenseman Kevin Gravel from AHL Milwaukee on Thursday morning, per a team announcement.
Gravel, 32, is expected to serve as Nashville’s lone healthy scratch on defense for tomorrow’s Game 6 against the Canucks. Out of their eight previously rostered defensemen, Spencer Stastney has already been ruled out week-to-week with an upper-body injury sustained in Game 3, while veteran Luke Schenn was a late scratch ahead of Game 5 due to illness. His recall indicates Schenn will likely remain unavailable tomorrow.
Dante Fabbro and Tyson Barrie have entered the lineup in Stastney’s and Schenn’s absences, both serving in top-four roles alongside Roman Josi and Ryan McDonagh, respectively. The Preds trailed Vancouver 3-1 in the series entering Game 5, but a 2-1 road win – including a secondary assist from Barrie on Josi’s power-play goal to tie the game in the third period – kept Nashville alive.
Gravel has 132 regular-season games of NHL experience under his belt, but none came this season. For the third time in the past four seasons, he spent the entire season in the minors.
As he enters the latter half of his career, the Michigan native has lost some of the offense he used to provide for minor-league clubs, but he’s remained an effective leader and shutdown presence for Milwaukee. He served as the team’s captain this season, logging a goal and nine assists with a +2 rating in 63 appearances.
A fifth-round pick of the Kings back in 2010, Gravel will miss the beginning of Milwaukee’s Central Division Semifinal series against Texas in the Calder Cup Playoffs, which begins tonight. The 6’4″, 205-lb blue liner is in the final year of a two-year, two-way contract he signed in July 2022 but signed another two-year, two-way extension in January that will keep him with the Preds organization through 2025-26.
Gravel has one game of Stanley Cup Playoff experience under his belt, coming in Game 2 of the Kings’ first-round sweep at the hands of the Golden Knights in 2018. He recorded no shots and a -1 rating in 20:05 of ice time as Los Angeles fell late in double overtime on an Erik Haula goal.
His last NHL action came last season with Nashville when he posted an assist and a -10 rating in 23 appearances. He solely occupied a depth role, averaging under 15 minutes per game with poor possession results (42.3 CF%, 41.4 xGF% at even strength).
NHL Announces 2024 Norris Trophy Finalists
The Canucks’ Quinn Hughes, the Predators’ Roman Josi and the Avalanche’s Cale Makar are this year’s Norris Trophy finalists for the league’s top defenseman, as announced today. Technically awarded “to the defense player who demonstrates throughout the season the greatest all-round ability in the position,” the Norris, like many others, is voted on by the Professional Hockey Writers Association after the regular season concludes.
Hughes, 24, isn’t just a finalist for the first time – he’s the first Canucks defenseman in franchise history to be named one. He has earned consideration in three of the past four seasons, placing 15th in voting in 2020, 13th in 2022, and ninth in 2023.
The 2018 seventh-overall pick is coming off a franchise-defining season, logging a Vancouver-record 75 assists and 92 points in 82 games that also led defenders league-wide. A first-year captain, Hughes averaged 24:41 per game, tying him for tenth in the league with Penguins blue-liner Kris Letang, and led all NHL defensemen with 54 even-strength points. He also had the most dominant possession season of his career, with Vancouver controlling 57.5% of shot attempts and 54.3% of expected goals with Hughes on the ice at even strength, per Hockey Reference.
Josi, 33, finished third among defensemen in points with 85 in 82 games but led outright in goals with 23. This is his third time being a finalist for the award, winning back in 2020 and finishing second to Makar in 2022. He’s now cracked the point-per-game plateau twice in the past three years and took the most shots of any blue-liner this season with 268, ahead of the Sabres’ Rasmus Dahlin by more than 30. Like Hughes, he’s coming off the best possession season of his career, posting a 54.5 CF%, 5.1 relative CF%, and a 53.8 xGF% at even strength.
Makar, 25, led defenders in points per game this season but missed five games due to injury, placing him second in points behind Hughes with 90 in 77 games. It’s his fourth straight season as a finalist for the award, but compared to his peers mentioned here, may have the worst case for satisfying the “all-around ability” stipulation this season.
He had a quietly average season at even strength by his standards, getting a higher share of his point production on the power play compared to Hughes and Josi. His possession numbers weren’t all that different from Colorado’s averages, either. His 53.0 CF% at even strength was his lowest since his rookie season, and his 0.3 relative CF% was a career-low outright. That led Colorado to reassign some of his 5-on-5 minutes elsewhere – his overall average ice time dropped from 26:23 in 2022-23 to 24:46 this season without any significant changes in his usage on special teams.
The league hasn’t yet announced the date when award winners will be revealed.
Dante Fabbro Will Play In Game 4
- Predators defenseman Dante Fabbro will make his first appearance of the 2024 postseason when Nashville takes the ice for Game 4 against the Canucks in a few minutes, head coach Andrew Brunette said (via Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman). He comes in to replace Spencer Stastney, who left Game 3 with an upper-body injury after a controversial hit from Vancouver winger Dakota Joshua. Stastney has since been ruled out week-to-week and is doubtful to return in the series. It’ll be Fabbro’s sixth appearance since the March 8 trade deadline – he missed most of last month with an upper-body injury. The 25-year-old had 13 points and a +9 rating in 56 games this year and signed a one-year, $2.5MM extension on deadline day.