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Unbelievable Bargains! Nashville Predators Score Top 5 Steals in 2024 Offseason Contracts
With a lot of salary cap freedom and affordable contracts coming into the 2024 offseason, General Manager Barry Trotz of the Nashville Predators will be well-positioned to lead the front office with aggression in his second season.
There are six unrestricted free agents Trotz must come to terms with initially; Alexandre Carrier headlines that list to keep the Predators defensive corps intact from last season.
What about the advantageous deal contracts that Trotz possesses? These may be simple to move in a trade, or they may provide the 2024–25 roster a boost while leaving space for others to be added.
Since this list only includes contracts through 2024–2025, players like Tommy Novak—who last season was among the NHL’s most cost-effective players in terms of point total—will not be included. In 2024–2025, his salary increases to $3.5 million from $800,000.
Clearly, in Smashville head coach Andrew Brunette’s second season as the bench boss, the Predators need to improve their offensive punch and scoring in order to be postseason contenders. Now that you get that out of the way, here are my top five deals for the Nashville Predators as of the 2024 offseason.
#5: Jeremy Lauzon, $2 million for two years remaining AAV Jeremy Lauzon is the NHL’s all-time hits leader for a single season, so let’s start this list with him. With virtually little fanfare, he inked the current $2 million agreement back in June 2022.
In addition to breaking the NHL single-season hit record with 383 points, Lauzon recorded a career-high 111 blocks in the largest role of his NHL career. He and Alexandre Carrier turned out to be a dependable, if surprising, defensive tandem for the Predators. The duration was questioned at the time of Lauzon’s 2022 offseason contract agreement.
It took a long time to commit to an unsettled defenseman like Lauzon, but he deserves credit for improving his game overall and beyond the terms of his current deal. With a career-high 103 shots on goal and 14 points, Lauzon even showed a hint of offensive flair.
Lauzon only lagged Roman Josi among Predators defensemen in terms of shots on goal. With two years remaining, Lauzon has more opportunity to improve, eventually convince Trotz to sign him to a comparable contract, and perhaps even receive a respectable increase. For the time being, Trotz is getting a great deal by having this aggressive enforcer on his team.
#4: Gustav Nyquist, $3.185 million AAV, one year remaining I have to admit that I struggled to feel any kind of emotion when Nyquist was signed during the 2023 offseason as a free agent. Not that he hated it, but he didn’t think that year would be a career year for him.
More than that, I didn’t think Nyquist would establish himself as a staple on the top line alongside Ryan O’Reilly and Filip Forsberg to create the most offensively effective top line in Predators history.
Even more superior to the notorious “JoFA” line from 2017 and 2018. Nyquist is only guaranteed a year at this low AAV of slightly over $3 million annually.
If Trotz wants to go big game hunting, he can offer him in a trade; otherwise, he may hang onto Nyquist for another season at this great price and hope the top line will perform as well as it did in 2023–2024. According to CapFriendly, the Predators have only $36, 464,643 invested on their forwards.
There are just five teams with less money invested in its forwards. That is 44.3% of their overall cap hit, but they also have the third-highest amount of money allocated to their defensemen. With all of this, is Trotz going to drastically change course and start investing more cash in forwards and finding more ways to score points? The two offensively worse clubs in the first round were the Predators and the Canucks.
The Predators would have advanced past the first round this year if they had produced even a mediocre offensive performance, let alone a spectacular one. What role does Nyquist now play in this? He’s still a good value at his current contract if the Predators retain him around for another year, but in 2025 he’ll be a free agency and one year older.
Before the 2024–25 regular season starts, he will be 35 years old. The Predators would be better off trying to find a trade partner for the aging Nyquist in order to avoid any productivity decrease the following season. At this cheap cost, the contract shouldn’t be too onerous.
#3 Ryan O’Reilly, $4.5 million AAV for three more years It would be incomplete to discuss Nyquist and the success of the top line without mentioning Ryan O’Reily, the line’s center.
first signed as a free agency in the 2023 summer and unexpectedly decided to join the revitalized Predators in Nashville after leaving Toronto. It was amazing to see what O’Reilly accomplished so rapidly after joining the Predators in the early part of the season.
O’Reilly could immediately begin to make an influence; there was no trial period. He was an instant boost and leader, which helped Filip Forsberg have the best season of his career with 94 points. The superstar top line center has always been the Predators’ target, and although O’Reilly isn’t “elite,” he is about as good as it gets.
#2: With two years remaining at $2,857,143 AAV, Colton Sissons Colton Sissons’ deal is worth roughly $2.857 million, which is one of the most arbitrary amounts you will ever see. Additionally, in 2019 this contract was first signed as a long seven-year agreement.
Many years to invest in a player who has never succeeded in becoming a major offensive playmaker. But as time has gone on, this deal has shown to be a terrific value for the Predators. mostly because Sissons is such a consistent and well-balanced player.
He performs a great deal of important little tasks that build up to a big effect. He can enter the physical regions, wins faceoffs, blocks shots, and even seen a boost in his offensive.
#1: Juuse Saros, $5 million, one year remaining AAV Not only is this one of the Predators’ greatest low-cost contracts, but it’s also among the top team-friendly offers in the NHL. Even in 2023–24, when he is having a fairly poor year, Saros still performs far better than the $5 million that he is currently earning.
Therefore, it is even more imperative that Trotz decides soon this offseason what he will do with the team’s goalie. Either make a blockbuster deal and maybe bring in a couple impact forwards, or sign him to a large price hike that is probably long-term.
Both choices have advantages and disadvantages. He is so important that it is plausible given his $5 million cap hit for 2024–2025.
