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Nashville Predators Acquire Ryan McDonagh For Philippe Myers, Grant Mismash

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Per their Twitter, the Tampa Bay Lightning confirmed that they have traded defenseman Ryan McDonagh to the Nashville Predators. In exchange, the Lightning receive defenseman Philippe Myers and forward Grant Mismash from Nashville. It doesn’t appear that any salary has been retained in the trade. With the Lightning needing to make some tough salary cap decisions if they wanted to keep a majority of their core together, one name that was rumored to be on the move was McDonagh, and GM Julien BriseBois was able to make it happen. McDonagh carries a cap hit of $6.75MM for each of the next four seasons.

In McDonagh the Predators acquire a sturdy shutdown defenseman and veteran of 783 career regular season NHL games, in addition to 185 playoff games, including Stanley Cup Championships with the Lightning in 2020 and 2021. Originally the twelfth-overall pick in the 2007 NHL Entry Draft by the Montreal Canadiens, McDonagh was traded to the New York Rangers two years later in the Scott Gomez deal. The defenseman went on to play in 516 regular season games for the Rangers, captaining the team from 2014-15 until his trade to the Lightning during the 2017-18 season. After the trade, the Predators still project to have just over $18.1MM in available salary cap space this offseason, which should be more than enough to make necessary moves and extend franchise-icon Filip Forsberg.

Matt Tennyson Clears Unconditional Waivers

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July 3: Per TSN’s Chris Johnston, Tennyson has cleared unconditional waivers and will have his contract terminated.

July 2: The Predators will be parting ways with one of their defensive depth pieces as Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reports (Twitter link) that they’ve placed defenseman Matt Tennyson on unconditional waivers for the purposes of terminating his contract.

The 32-year-old was set to enter the second and final season of a two-year, two-way contract that pays the NHL minimum of $750K in the NHL and $325K in the minors.  Tennyson got into eight games with the Predators this past season, recording three assists while averaging nearly 13 minutes a night.  He spent most of the year with AHL Milwaukee, recording 14 points in 53 games along with 44 penalty minutes.

PuckPedia clarifies (Twitter link) that Tennyson’s placement is for termination purposes, not a buyout.  That certainly makes sense as going that route won’t result in any salary cap charges for next season whereas a buyout would have put $250K on Nashville’s salary cap for each of the next two seasons and cost more in salary dollars than the $325K he’d be owed in the minors.  In the meantime, with Tennyson requesting a contract termination, it will be interesting to see what opportunity he has lined up elsewhere assuming he passes through waivers unclaimed on Sunday.

Rival Teams Believe Eight Years At $8.5MM Would Keep Forsberg In Nashville

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Predators winger Filip Forsberg is one of the most prominent pending unrestricted free agents with the opening of the market now less than two weeks away.  However, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman relays in the latest 32 Thoughts podcast (audio link) that teams believe there’s a path for the 27-year-old to stay in Nashville on a max-term eight-year deal with an $8.5MM AAV.  Such a deal would represent a $2.5MM raise on his last contract, one that would be well-deserved after a 42-goal, 84-point season.  Worth noting is that Nashville’s tax situation is a favorable one so if other teams think an AAV of $8.5MM would get a deal done with the Predators, teams that aren’t in an ideal tax environment would need to go considerably higher to match the net money Forsberg would receive.

Columbus Blue Jackets Acquire Mathieu Olivier

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The Columbus Blue Jackets and Nashville Predators have announced a trade: forward Mathieu Olivier is going from Nashville to Columbus in exchange for the 122nd pick at next week’s draft, a pick that originally belonged to the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Olivier, 25, is an undrafted player who spent most of this past season with the AHL’s Milwaukee Admirals. The six-foot-two, 210-pound native of Biloxi, Mississippi had his longest stretch of NHL action in 2020-21, when he got into 30 games for the Predators, registering three goals and five points to go along with 70 penalty minutes. Olivier will play next season on a $750k cap hit before becoming an arbitration-eligible restricted free agent.

In Olivier, the Blue Jackets are acquiring a big, physical fourth-line grinder. He’s a hit-first, ask questions later sort of player who isn’t much different from what Columbus coach Brad Larsen was when he was in the NHL. Olivier isn’t much of a scorer, and his 11 points in 46 AHL games this past season is a clear indication of that. Olivier fits best in a fourth-line role at both the NHL and AHL levels and can play that role with some success. Predators coach John Hynes trusted Olivier enough to play him in three of the team’s four playoff games this year, and it’s definitely possible that he earns a similar level of trust from Larsen. While fourth-rounder is a bit of a steep price to pay for someone who likely won’t be anything more than a fourth-liner, it’s clear the Blue Jackets have an identity they want to build and they believe that Olivier helps them build it.

For the Predators, getting a fourth-rounder for Olivier is a decent bit of business, especially if he wasn’t in their long-term plans. According to The Athletic’s Scott Wheeler, the Predators have the 12th-ranked prospect pool in the NHL, so adding another pick in next week’s draft gives GM David Poile and his staff another swing of the bat to try to make a home-run selection.

Ultimately, if the Predators do end up feeling like they’ll miss what Olivier brings to the table, physical fourth-liners are always available in free agency. But with Tanner Jeannot and Yakov Trenin already in the fold, among others, it’s possible that dealing Olivier is simply the Predators cashing in a surplus player in order to add an extra draft choice.

West Notes: Forsberg, Horvat, Oilers Coaching Staff

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Recently, we covered how Filip Forsberg and the Nashville Predators’ negotiations on a new contract had been difficult, with both sides still “far apart” in terms of what a potential extension would look like. A week later, the situation remains uncertain. TSN’s Darren Dreger reported on the status of the negotiations today, clarifying that while the gap between the team and player is said to be less than $1MM per year, there still has not been “a lot of progress” on finalizing a deal. With the eight-year term already agreed upon, that relatively small gap in the negotiation could cause the situation to drag on until potentially even the start of free agency.

With the gap under $1MM, it’ll be extremely interesting to see if Forsberg remains a Predator. He is the team’s all-time leading goal scorer and among their most important players. GM David Poile is a firm negotiator, and the Predators’ reluctance to give n0-trade protection on deals has been well-publicized. So, with that reputation in mind, it’s fair to wonder if Poile will let that six-figure gap be the reason Forsberg departs Nashville. From most fans’ perspectives, it seems like an easy question: the small bump in cost is worth avoiding the trouble of finding a replacement player. But to cement a deal with the long-tenured Poile, who is no stranger to letting important players leave in free agency, perhaps Forsberg will be the one who will need to compromise.

Now, for some other notes from across the NHL’s Western Conference:

  • While J.T. Miller has been the name most frequently mentioned in trade rumors, Vancouver Canucks captain Bo Horvat actually has an identical contract situation, as he too will become an unrestricted free agent next summer. But unlike Miller, Horvat probably won’t be on the move anytime soon, hence his absence in the rumor mill. Per Thomas Drance of The Athletic (subscription link), the Canucks are “completely invested” in retaining Horvat beyond the expiry of his current contract. It’s easy to see why, as Horvat is among the team’s most important leaders and is still a highly effective on-ice talent. The 27-year-old pivot crossed the 30-goal plateau last year for the first time in his career and should be in line for a moderate raise from his current $5.5MM cap hit.
  • The Edmonton Oilers finalized their coaching situation when they removed the interim tag from coach Jay Woodcroft’s job title. Now, it seems that Woodcroft’s full coaching staff is taking shape. Per Dreger, Oilers assistant Brian Wiseman is “moving on” from the team, while fellow coaches Dave Manson and Glen Gulutzan are expected to stay in Edmonton. Wiseman is a former twelfth-round pick who has been an assistant coach in Edmonton for three seasons. Before then, he was part of the coaching staff at his alma mater, the University of Michigan. While a return to the college ranks is possible, Wiseman will certainly have options, as Dreger reports that he is set to have “strong interest” from a “variety of teams.”

Filip Forsberg Looking For Eight-Year Deal

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Nashville Predators’ general manager recently publically announced that he had offered Filip Forsberg an eight-year deal to stay in town and avoid free agency, and now Forsberg’s agent has done the same. JP Barry told Rick Dhaliwal of CHEK TV that they are talking about an eight-year deal and though he noted they are not yet in agreement on salary, the two sides are grinding away at it.

The Predators are the only team that is allowed to offer Forsberg an eight-year deal at the moment, and even that right will expire in two weeks when free agency begins. The 40-goal winger will turn 28 in August, meaning a contract of that length would take him well into his mid-thirties and potentially represent the final big payday of his career.

Edmonton Oil Kings Eliminated From 2022 Memorial Cup

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With the round-robin set to close tomorrow at the 2022 Memorial Cup, one team already knows its fate. The WHL champion Edmonton Oil Kings are out of the top Canadian junior tournament, dropping their third game of the round-robin 4-2 against the OHL champion Hamilton Bulldogs.

The host Saint John Sea Dogs of the QMJHL will play their league champion, the Shawinigan Cataractes, tomorrow. The winner of that game will advance directly to the 2022 Memorial Cup Final on June 29, while the loser will face Hamilton in the semi-final on Monday.

Edmonton bows out of the tournament without a regulation win. Their two points in the standings came courtesy of a 4-3 overtime win against Saint John.

It’s a shocking exit for the WHL champion, who terrorized the league with a 50-14-4 record during the regular season. But their offense was stricken heavily when it was announced that leading scorer Dylan Guenther, a 2021 first-round selection of the Arizona Coyotes, would miss the tournament due to injury. Still, the squad had a strong core with NHL prospects Sebastian Cossa (Detroit Red Wings) in goal, Kaiden Guhle (Montreal Canadiens) and Luke Prokop (Nashville Predators) on defense, and Jake Neighbours (St. Louis Blues) and Justin Sourdif (Florida Panthers) rounding out an all-star lineup. The team’s depth was nothing to scoff at either, with multiple other NHL prospects and WHL veterans playing big roles.

The WHL’s streak of Memorial Cup losses, which dates back now to 2014 with the Oil Kings, will continue.

Nashville Predators Sign Cody Glass

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The Nashville Predators have inked forward Cody Glass to a one-year, two-way contract after he accepted his qualifying offer. That means Glass will carry a cap hit of $874K at the NHL level, and make $70K in the AHL. He was not yet eligible for salary arbitration.

Despite no longer being a top prospect, as his NHL career has still yet to take off at age 23, there’s still hope that Glass can become a solid contributor for the Predators in the future. Taking a demotion to the minor leagues in stride this season, the young forward managed to put up a strong campaign with the Milwaukee Admirals, scoring 62 points in 66 games.

While the two-way deal might suggest that he is headed for the minor leagues again next season, remember that Glass is no longer waiver-exempt and will have to clear in order to be assigned to Milwaukee this time around. That gives him at least a bit of protection, as another team could take a chance on him if he fails to make Nashville’s opening night roster.

Selected sixth overall by the Vegas Golden Knights in 2017, it just hasn’t come together yet for the former Portland Winterhawks star. Glass has 23 points in 74 games at the NHL level but most of those came in his first year. He had just one point in eight games this season for the Predators, and failed to score when he was inserted into the lineup for two playoff games. If he’s going to be an NHL player, this is a crucial year to prove it.

Free Agent Focus: Nashville Predators

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Free agency is now less than a month away and many teams are already looking ahead to when it opens up.  There will be several prominent players set to hit the open market in mid-July while many teams have key restricted free agents to re-sign as well.  Next up is a look at the Predators

Key Restricted Free Agents:

F Yakov Trenin – Don’t let his point total fool you, Trenin was a breakout player this past season for the Predators and one of the better stories of their year. The 25-year-old Russian winger entered this campaign without much expectation, his eleven points in 45 games in 2020-21 not exactly setting the stage for him to become an important member of the team. But that’s exactly what Trenin did, as he established himself as a full-time NHL-er and an embodiment of the team identity coach John Hynes wants to see out of his Predators. You would be hard-pressed to find an NHL-er that plays with more passion than Trenin, and his fit on a crash-and-bang line with Tanner Jeannot and Colton Sissons entertained fans in Nashville all year. Trenin scored 17 goals this year and added three playoff goals in the team’s brief four-game postseason run. While he had only seven assists all year, Trenin’s goal-scoring, energy, and penalty killing (he averaged 1:40 shorthanded ice time per game, which ranked fourth among Predators forwards) proved valuable for Nashville, and those are the qualities that will help him in negotiations this summer.

Trenin is an arbitration-eligible free agent, meaning he does have some leverage, although his negotiations with Nashville probably won’t get to the point where arbitration is needed. It’s tough to find a perfect contract comparable for Trenin because what he brings to the table is so unique, especially within the context of the Predators and the team identity they want to have. A short or medium-term deal at around a $2MM-3MM AAV would make sense, as Trenin may not want to lock himself into a deal that takes him into his thirties while he has under 150 games of NHL experience.

F Luke Kunin – Kunin ranked eighth amongst Predators forwards in time-on-ice per game, and was fifth when excluding the aforementioned Trenin-Sissons-Jeannot line, a line that stuck together and played a very specific role for most of the season. So Kunin, a 2016 first-round pick, did not spend 2021-22 lacking the opportunity to be a difference-maker and put together a productive campaign. What he lacked was the ability to take advantage of that opportunity and fulfill the promise that saw him get drafted between Charlie McAvoy and Jakob Chychrun. Kunin had only 22 points in his full 82-game season this year, and that’s despite offensive resurgences from forwards across the Predators’ top-six, players like Matt Duchene, Ryan Johansen, and Mikael Granlund, the guys Kunin frequently shared the ice with. So that leaves him in a curious position entering the offseason, where he is an arbitration-eligible restricted free agent. This was a crucially important season for Kunin, who will turn 25 next year. His inability to seize the opportunities he’s been given has raised questions over whether his future is in Nashville long-term. Kunin comes with a $2.3MM qualifying offer, which isn’t a huge amount but also not an insignificant number. While it’s possible that the Predators and Kunin enter next season together, it would not be a surprise if he was headed elsewhere this summer.

F Cody Glass – While Kunin represents a first-round reclamation project of sorts that hasn’t gone well for the Predators, Glass is an example of a first-round reclamation project that has shown promise. Glass was acquired from the Vegas Golden Knights last summer in exchange for Nolan Patrick, who Nashville was able to send to Vegas thanks to the Ryan Ellis deal with the Philadelphia Flyers. Glass, 23, was the sixth-overall pick in 2017 and had been a lethal junior scorer, but his professional career had been derailed by injuries and inconsistency. The Predators likely believed that a change of scenery was what Glass needed, and they may have been right. Glass has thrived since the trade. He led the AHL Milwaukee Admirals in scoring with 62 points in 66 games and even earned a brief NHL call-up. A short, cheap extension for Glass makes the most sense for this season, as the Predators will definitely want to see if he can finally stick in the NHL full-time before beginning to think about any possibility of a long-term deal.

Other RFA’s: F Matt Luff, F Jimmy Huntington, F Thomas Novak, F Cole Smith, D David Farrance, G Devin Cooley

Key Unrestricted Free Agents

F Filip Forsberg – Right now, it seems as though the Predators’ offseason is entirely centered around what happens with Forsberg and his next contract, and GM David Poile seemed to acknowledge as much in his comments today. Forsberg is among the Predators’ most important players. A highly-skilled offensive dynamo, Forsberg had a career year this past season, scoring 84 points in 69 games. He’s the Predators’ all-time leading goal-scorer and means so much to the organization both on and off the ice. But a deal has yet to be completed, and the team and player are reportedly far apart in their negotiations, paving the way for a departure. The Predators pay their captain, Roman Josi, just over $9MM AAV on his long-term deal. It’s definitely possible that the Predators simply do not want anyone on their books with a higher cap hit than Josi, and it’s also definitely possible that Forsberg believes he can earn a bigger contract than that on the open market. Fellow play-driving left winger Artemi Panarin got over $11MM AAV to sign with the New York Rangers, so perhaps Forsberg is eyeing a similar mega-deal. From the Predators’ perspective, it will be extremely hard to find a player who can replace Forsberg at a cost that won’t be significant in either dollars or assets, so in order to keep their core intact, they might need to pay more for Forsberg than they’d like to. This is a high-stakes, high-pressure situation, and one that will have a major ripple effect on the entire Predators franchise, regardless of the outcome. 

D Matt Benning – Benning, the nephew of former Vancouver Canucks GM Jim Benning, quietly had a decent season in 2021-22. His offense isn’t why he’s in the NHL, and he had only 11 points in 65 games, but when he got into the lineup he provided steady, responsible play at a reasonable price. Benning ranked third among Predators defensemen in shorthanded ice time per game and showed versatility in where he could be played within the lineup. With Mattias Ekholm and Josi’s pairings set in stone for most of the year, Benning managed a rotating cast of partners on the team’s bottom pairing and the Predators acquired Jeremy Lauzon from the Kraken in part to ease his defensive burden. Benning cost $1MM against the cap last year and could likely be had on a similar deal for next season.

Other UFA’s: F Nick Cousins, D Ben Harpur, G David Rittich, F Brayden Burke, F Rocco Grimaldi, F Kole Sherwood, D Alex Biega, D Jeremy Davies

Projected Cap Space:

The Predators are projected to have just above $21MM in open cap space this summer, a healthy amount for a playoff team with as many veterans as the Predators have. A new extension for Forsberg will take a chunk of that cap space, and a possible extension for Trenin is of note as well. But with players such as Josi and Juuse Saros, two players who are among the best in the NHL at their position, locked into contracts and other veteran difference-makers such as Duchene, Johansen, and Granlund also under contract for the foreseeable future, the Predators to have room to maneuver in this offseason’s market.

Obviously, any plan they have will start with Forsberg, but if he does end up walking, the Predators will have a stockpile of cap space in a flat-cap league where having space is at its most important. They still have extensions for Jeannot and Phillip Tomasino on the horizon, so they can’t be reckless. But even with those future negotiations in mind, Predators have a world of possibilities open to them this summer. So while the fate of the Predators’ most skilled forward is uncertain, the ability of Poile and the Predators to be a major player this offseason is not.

Photos courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.  Contract information courtesy of CapFriendly.

Latest On Filip Forsberg

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If you were to list all of the pending free agents in terms of earning potential, Filip Forsberg would be right near the top. The 27-year-old winger is coming off an incredible season in which he scored 42 goals and 84 points in just 69 games, setting career-highs in both categories at the perfect time. Thirty-two of those goals came at even-strength, putting him ninth in the entire league, and setting him up for a massive payday this summer.

For the next few weeks, the Nashville Predators are the only team that can offer him an eight-year deal, meaning they likely have the ability to offer the most total money on a new contract. General manager David Poile even confirmed this morning when speaking to reporters including John Glennon of NHL.com that they have offered Forsberg a deal of that length, though wouldn’t clarify the proposed salary.

Despite that, the two sides remain far apart, according to Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff, who notably reports that both the dollar amount and type of contract structure are in dispute. Poile is notorious for having very hard lines on contract structure, including things like no-trade clauses. Currently, captain Roman Josi is the only Predator who holds any trade protection (though Pekka Rinne did also negotiate some in the past).

While expecting 40-goal seasons moving forward might be a stretch, Forsberg has been one of the most consistent offensive players in the league for basically his entire time in the NHL. As a rookie in 2014-15, he had 26 goals and 63 points, numbers that he’s hovered around up until this year’s outlying performance. Even taking out this season his career averages are 29 goals and 64 points per 82 games, someone who would fit into basically every top-six in the entire league.

There’s no way of knowing how many teams would be seriously interested in signing him but little doubt that he would be able to secure a seven-year contract on the open market.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images

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