The absolutely tremendous 4 Nations Faceoff tournament is behind us and it is just a few short weeks until the NHL trade deadline. Now that the Nashville Predators are out of the playoff picture it is time to start looking ahead and moving the chess pieces into place for next season and beyond. With that in mind, I give you my wish list for the Predators and GM Barry Trotz.

Wish 1: Take a serious run at Trevor Zegras or Elias Pettersson

If there is one hole in the Predators lineup shining with the intensity of 1,000 suns it is a high level distributor at the center position. As Alex Daugherty of the Tennessean pointed out on X, Nathan MacKinnon has more assists this season than all Nashville’s centers COMBINED. The current top 6 is flush with capable shooters (though that hasn’t really shown up this year either) but lacks a long term solution who excels at getting the puck to those scorers in a place to maximize their ability. Gus Nyquist is a very good passer but more than likely he will be on another team in the next three weeks. Fedor Svechkov is ahead of schedule and looks like he will become a very good player but I’m not sure if being an assist machine is his game. Further down the pipeline there are a lot of talented players but many of them project more as middle of the lineup goal scorers than top end producers.

Trevor Zegras and Elias Pettersson are the type of players that do not come up on the trading block very often. They are tremendously talented with the puck and are still on the younger side of their careers. The rub is that the reason they are even potentially available is because both are really struggling this season so the idea absolutely carries some risk. But if the Predators can acquire one of them at a reduced value and help them return to form then the potential value gain is tremendous as young centers who can produce at the NHL level are one of the hardest assets to find. In this case, given the number of tradeable assets the Predators have, the risk is worth taking to acquire a major skill upgrade at the center position.

Wish 2: Use the last salary retention slot to facilitate a trade

As we have seen in recent years, there are more ways to acquire assets than just trading a roster player. One such way is to be a 3rd party in a trade where a receiving team needs to reduce incoming salary beyond what the sending team can retain. In these cases, the 3rd party team typically receives draft pick compensation for their participation. Earlier this season, the Blackhawks received a 3rd round pick for their participation in the trade that sent Mikko Rantanen to the Hurricanes. 

The Nashville Predators currently own the 5th most cap space in the NHL, per PuckPedia. This puts Nashville in a prime position to get paid in draft picks for taking on salary, possibly even in another Rantanen trade. In the past, David Poile was reluctant to play a role in other teams’ transactions but Barry Trotz seems ready to use all available avenues to see out his roster strategies. 

Wish 3: Use one of the 2025 first round picks in a trade

The history of NHL teams having and using three 1st round picks in one draft is not great, to say the least. The most prominent example is the 2015 NHL draft where the Boston Bruins had three first round picks in a row and came away with one NHL regular, forward Jake DeBrusk. The Devils did better identifying talent in 2020 with their three 1st round picks but only one is on their roster today. The rest of the teams in the salary cap era have come away with middling returns at best. The likelihood of hitting on two, not to mention three, 1st round picks in one draft just isn’t very high.

While the Predators own 1st round pick looks like it will be high up in the lottery, the other two came from Tampa Bay and Vegas who both look to be contenders for a deep playoff run. Assuming they both at least make it out of the first round of the NHL playoffs, their respective picks would fall somewhere in the 20’s where the likelihood of finding top level talent gets murky at best. With a roster that is built to contend (even if they aren’t right now), more draft picks incoming from this year’s trade deadline and a deep pool of prospects it would be prudent to use at least one of the 2025 first round picks to acquire a talented player who is ready to contribute now.

Player and Draft history courtesy of NHL.com and HockeyDB