NHL Trade Deadline primer: Why Nashville should be aggressively selling; What's next for Columbus?
The Predators have a chance to really bring in a lot of future assets over the next couple of weeks while Columbus enters a rather uncertain phase following its general manager change.
The 2023-24 NHL Trade Deadline is just a few weeks away so it is time to start taking a look at some of the teams and players that could be big factors. We start today with the Nashville Predators why the team to aggressively sell is now, and what could be ahead for the Columbus Blue Jackets.
In the lead-up to last year’s NHL Trade Deadline — and into the early parts of the offseason —the Nashville Predators looked like a team that was on the verge of a full-scale rebuild. Maybe even in the early stages of it. They had a new general manager coming in for the first time in franchise history (Barry Trotz replacing David Poile), had shed several big contracts (Mikael Granlund, Tanner Jeannot, Matt Duchene, Ryan Johansen), and accumulated a ton of future draft assets.
It looked like they were going out of their way to give Trotz a clean slate to start rebuilding, and he seemed to have a new vision for what he wanted the organization to be.
But when the 2023 offseason actually began they followed up all of that subtraction by adding a couple of prominent veterans in free agency (Ryan O’Reilly and Gustav Nyquist) to multi-year deals and didn’t really seem intent on starting a new chapter. It all just seemed to be business as usual where they had constructed a team that wasn’t terrible, wasn’t great, and was going to need every possible variable and X-factor to fall in their favor just to have a chance at a Wild Card spot. And even if they did get that Wild Card spot it was probably going to be an incredibly short trip through the postseason.
They missed the playoffs a year ago, barely snuck in two years ago, and have not played in the second round since the 2018 season. It is as mediocre of a situation as you can get, and nothing seems to be changing this season.
The Predators have been trending in the wrong direction for a couple of weeks now this season, and even though they are only a few points out of a playoff spot as of Sunday they are still facing a pretty significant uphill battle just to get in. At some point you have to think about something more than just minor tweaks to the roster.
I would argue that time is now, and the opportunity is presenting itself in a couple of different ways.
It may not even need to be an overly extended or painfully long rebuild if done correctly.
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