Speculation: Off-Season 2018

[King Weber]

The season ended a lot earlier than any of us wanted it to end, so might as well get this thread going and start looking forward to next season rather than just dwell on the disappointment that was the 2017-18 post-season.

No Expansion drafts this summer, so nothing to worry about there just yet.

The Entry Draft will be held on June 22nd-23rd in Dallas, but we don't have any picks until pick #89, so not much to discuss there. Our other picks include picks #111, #131, #151 and #213.

After the Draft, the next big day is July 1st aka start of Free Agency. Who stays, who goes, and most importantly, who comes in?

We have 3 UFA's (Hartnell, Fisher, Emelin) and 3 RFA's (Saros, Hartman, Salomaki) on our main roster.
The salary cap is projected to go up from 75 million to somewhere between 78 and 82 million, so we'll have at least $10,470,000 in cap space, which should be enough to re-sign everyone we want back and then some.

The Free agent class this year includes quite a few big names, most notably John Tavares, who will most likely get a big contract ranging from 9 million to 11 million.
Other bigger names include Rick Nash, Joe Thornton, Paul Stastny, Evander Kane, James Neal, James van Riemsdyk, John Carlson, Tyler Bozak, David Perron, Michael Grabner, Jack Johnson and Mike Green.

You can see rest of the UFA's here:
Browse - CapFriendly - NHL Salary Caps

Click to read more...

 

[Armourboy]

Frankly most of the UFA's I wouldn't want unless I could get them on a short contract and most of them are going to be looking for longer deals.

 

[Roman Yoshi]

Throw all the money at Tavares. All of it.

 

[Enjoy i24 Traffic]

Throw all the money at Tavares. All of it.

Woof. Jesus christ, no.

Resign Hartnell!

 

[Roman Yoshi]

Woof. Jesus christ, no.

Resign Hartnell!

Not sure if you are kidding or not.

 

[jorel]

Trade for a playmaking center.

 

[hockey diva]

No to overspending on any FAs. I would let Hartnell walk, Fisher is not coming back, Emelin?. Salomaki has been a dud, and Hartman is meh. We need to restock the farm badly, but we have no picks to do it with.

 

[Enjoy i24 Traffic]

Trade for a playmaking center.

lol story of our f***ing life

but where ya gonna put him?

 

[NoNecksCurse]

Woof. Jesus christ, no.

Resign Hartnell!

must be a joke? hartnell isn't coming back.

tavares is a pipe dream.

 

[jorel]

Trade for a playmaking center.

lol story of our ****ing life

but where ya gonna put him?

Down the middle, where else ;p. Seriously though, between bonino and watson. Ironhook can center the 4th line. Maybe trade turris for a stronger playmaker. get a power forward that can acurretly shoot to replace Smith?

 

[Enjoy i24 Traffic]

RE: Hartnell For $1m who cares?

Tavares will never happen. Please don't set yourself up for disappointment.

 

[LCPreds]

We do not sign any of the UFA and will look to sign all 3 of the RFA depending on the deal. Definitely want to keep Saros and Hartman. Don't care all that much about 20.

 

[Roman Yoshi]

must be a joke? hartnell isn't coming back.

tavares is a pipe dream.

After last night, pipe dreams are all I got this morning. And muscle relaxers.

 

[Bringer of Jollity]

Most boring off-season in years. No draft picks of consequence, no UFA signings of note, not really anything left to trade. We are what we are, God help us.

 

[Lateralous]

Poile has done a good job setting the Predators up for a long window of contention, so there's no reason to go overboard retooling the roster this Summer because of this perceived playoff failure. The team learned a hard lesson about being the favorite and playing with expectations but you can also count on one had the number of guys who played up to their capability for the last month (Jofa, Watson, Sissions?) and still made it to game 7 with the 2nd best team in the league (by record). He could conceivably take another shot at the cup with essentially the same roster and expect better results. That being said, I would consider the following if I were Poile:

1. I would like to see him take a shot at acquiring Tavares before UFA via a sign and trade. This isn't meant to be an overreaction to Turris' horrible playoff, but if they could trade Turris for salary cap reasons to the Isles for a signed Tavares, you have to consider it. Bonino is a perfectly good 3rd line center so I don't think you have to worry about holding onto Kyle in this scenario. For the Isles side, I'm not sure anyone else is in position to offer more and given the prospect of losing Tavares for nothing, there's a lot worse outcomes then going forward with Turris and Barzal as your top two Centers.

2. This isn't a summer thing but they absolutely cannot go into another playoff where Rinne is so entrenched as the #1 that he has such a long leash. I don't think they necessarily need to acquire another goalie but I would like to see Rinne and Saros used next season as a true 1A/1B so that they just go with whoever is playing well. They absolutely can never go through another important series where one guy literally gets yanked 2 or 3 times. You just can't win like that and between Chicago 2015, Pittsburgh 2017 and Winnipeg 2018, there's a definite pattern there with Rinne when the stakes get high. I know MAF is killing it now but Pittsburgh kind of threw away several years earlier this decade thinking it would somehow be different the next year with him and it wasn't until a change of scenery that it ever was.

 

[Raimo Sillanpää]

2. This isn't a summer thing but they absolutely cannot go into another playoff where Rinne is so entrenched as the #1 that he has such a long leash. I don't think they necessarily need to acquire another goalie but I would like to see Rinne and Saros used next season as a true 1A/1B so that they just go with whoever is playing well. They absolutely can never go through another important series where one guy literally gets yanked 2 or 3 times. You just can't win like that and between Chicago 2015, Pittsburgh 2017 and Winnipeg 2018, there's a definite pattern there with Rinne when the stakes get high. I know MAF is killing it now but Pittsburgh kind of threw away several years earlier this decade thinking it would somehow be different the next year with him and it wasn't until a change of scenery that it ever was.

Only saw the highlights/replays, game 7 goals didn’t look so bad - so seeing Rinne slumped after the change took some time to suss out.
I think that was a changing of the guard mentally. Saros will be 1a going forward, maybe only really at the end of the season, but it looked like a changing of the guard..

 

[JustaFinnishGuy]

Only saw the highlights/replays, game 7 goals didn’t look so bad - so seeing Rinne slumped after the change took some time to suss out.
I think that was a changing of the guard mentally. Saros will be 1a going forward, maybe only really at the end of the season, but it looked like a changing of the guard..

Lavy will die on the Rinne hill many times over during his last year here. His play forward tells us if he's worth extending. Saros won't have more games, neither he really should. The team didn't exactly play for him during the season although he was mostly lights out.

 

[BigFatCat999]

I expect Fisher and Hartnell to retire. Emelin might be back...on the cheap. Does Nashville sign Fabbro? Can Fabbro have enough potential to cause Ellis to be traded? I'm just wondering if Josi is injured? Lots of people have been saying he looked like crap. All the RFAs will be signed because they are cheap.

 

[drwpreds]

I don't know if it is just me, but I am so mentally and physically fatigued right now (no more 7 hour round trips in one day for games!!) that I can't even think about the offseason or next year right now. I need a break.

Will come back to this thread at a later date- lol

 

[Armourboy]

My Mom always said never say never, but don't hold your breath on the Tavares thing, you are pretty likely to end up dead.

This will probably be one really boring off season and frankly I'm ok with that. I'd rather that happen than to see an overreaction like we saw with Chicago this past season.

 

[Critical13]

Nylander/Kadri for one of your top 4?

 

[PredsHabs]

Nylander/Kadri for one of your top 4?

Nylander is one piece I would move one for.

 

[PredsHabs]

Not sure what to think of this team. We hit Winnipeg who was playing there best going into the playoffs. Maybe we hit our stride to early.

Twice after the telecast yesterday they mentioned us trading one of our top four for help up front and maybe it’s time.

 

[Tysonson3]

Nylander/Kadri for one of your top 4?

Nylander for Ellis. Let’s get it done

 

[drwpreds]

All I will say is you just never know with Poile. We all were probably anticipating a boring summer and offseason before the Weber/Subban trade hit, too.