And So It Begins…

It’s been an interesting past few days for Predators’ fans.  Right now, David Poile has a number of options available to him at the moment as well.  But first, let’s review the recent actions to date.

First, David Poile re-signed Francis Bouillon for two years at a $1.375 million cap hit.  Given my attempts at impersonating David Poile last time, I definitely like this deal (which was better than what I had guessed).  The downside is the likely difference in the role Poile and I have them playing.  I continued to ice Bouillon as the number five defenseman and re-signed either Hamhuis or Grebeshkov as the number three defenseman.  With Poile trading Hamhuis and stating on radio shows that he likely will not qualify Grebeshkov, he is likely prepared to enter the season with either Klein or Bouillon in the third slot.  We’ll see how long that experiment works out (and it certainly could be made to work).

After the Bouillon signing, Poile traded Dan Hamhuis to Philadelphia and then shocked most of the Predators’ fans and media by trading Jason Arnott to New Jersey.  The trade of Hamhuis was great in that it brought back former Predator first round pick Ryan Parent for a player that Nashville was going to lose in two weeks anyway.  Parent (RFA) will now have to be re-signed as well, but shouldn’t be a huge cost.

Jason Arnott yielded a prospect and a second round pick from New Jersey.  More importantly however is the $4.5 million that is now available to re-sign current players and make improvements to the team.  Much has been made regarding the impact that losing Arnott’s scoring will have.  In my opinion, I don’t think that replacing the 46 points he scored from last season will be that hard (certainly with the additional salary room).  As a team that’s always had a leadership group above and beyond the captain and the alternates, they should not experience much of a leadership void either.  Arnott’s history of concussions was troubling to me for both the player and the team.  From that perspective, I wish he had retired.  In any case, I wish both he and Dan Hamhuis the greatest of luck and health and thank them for their service to the Nashville Predators.  I’ve had the pleasure of watching them both play in Nashville for many years.

Now that all the dust has settled, what options are available to David Poile as he completes the roster?  Plenty.  First, let’s make the following assumptions so that we set our field:

• Ryan Parent and Cody Franson are both re-signed at roughly $1 million each,
• Patric Hornqvist is re-signed for 3yrs and a $2.25 million cap hit ($2, $2.25, and $2.5 million per),
• Mark Dekanich or some other backup tender is brought in for about $550,000.

Including Alexander Sulzer, Cal O’Reilly, and Nick Spaling that brings the roster size to 23 players totaling $43.175 million in actual salary with a $44,633,334 cap hit.  That breaks down into 13 forwards, 8 defensemen and 2 goalies- one (or two) too many defensemen.  Let’s additionally assume that the Predators budget will be roughly $46 million in actual salary and they still cannot exceed the midpoint of the salary cap.  Without moving another player, Poile still has about $2.125 million in actual salary room for the upcoming season.  Of course with roster limits, he’ll have to move someone (or demote) to bring in more, so let’s move Alexander Sulzer.  That raises budget space to $2.825 million.

Assuming moving J.P. Dumont is still an option as well, that opens the budget space to $6.875 million (while being $7,516,666 under the cap mid point).  Given that Poile still wants to address scoring and hasn’t ruled out further trades or free agents, I believe that Poile is open to bringing in an elite forward provided he can move J.P. Dumont.  Most did not believe that moving Arnott was an option (NMC, etc.), but it was.  Moving Dumont is a viable option if he’s agreeable.

The numbers work.  Even with an internal budget of $46 million, you can bring in a superstar player.  Will David Poile do that?  I don’t know, but I believe he’s looking for that right fit.

Edited to add: All numbers obtained from CapGeek.com.