It’s tough to tank when even the teams you’re facing that are close to the playoff bar sold at the trade deadline to make their team worse.
The Nashville Predators are just outside the last wild card spot in the Western Conference, with games in hand on the Winnipeg Jets and Edmonton Oilers ahead of them. Their playoff odds aren’t exactly good — HockeyViz has them at a 48.1% chance to make the playoffs — but they’re good enough that most teams in their position would have at least stood pat and had a go at sneaking in to the playoffs.
But with injuries to key players Filip Forsberg and Ryan Johansen, the Predators punted on the season and became sellers on the trade market, reaping a healthy crop of draft picks.
They traded Nino Niederreiter to the Winnipeg Jets for a second-round pick in 2024. They got a haul for Tanner Jeannot from the Tampa Bay Lightning because of his $800,000 cap hit, getting Cal Foote, 2023 third, fourth, and fifth-round picks, a 2024 second-round pick, and a 2025 first-round pick.
They got Tyson Barrie, prospect Reid Schaefer, who was selected in the first round in 2022, a 2023 first-round pick, and a 2024 fourth-round pick from the Edmonton Oilers for Mattias Ekholm. They moved Mikael Granlund to the Pittsburgh Penguins for a second-round pick in 2023.
The Predators did add one player: Rasmus Asplund from the Buffalo Sabres for a 2025 seventh-round pick.
In total, the Predators now have 16 picks in the first three rounds of the next three NHL Entry Drafts. Five of those are first-round picks. They also have six fourth-round picks for good measure. That’s right: 20 picks in the first four rounds of the next three drafts.
The Predators did all of this and are ninth in the Western Conference and 17th in the NHL.
The Canucks are currently 26th in the NHL; they have eight picks in the first three rounds of the next three drafts. They don’t have their second-round pick in the next two drafts.
Besides the draft-pick comparison between the two teams, the Predators’ fire sale and injuries have left them with a roster that is likely to slide down the standings and get them a better draft pick. It definitely made them easier to beat for the Canucks on Monday night.
It will be interesting to look at the Predators and Canucks in five years and see which team is better off: the team close to the playoffs who sold off players to acquire draft picks or the team miles from the playoffs who actually bought at the deadline, trading away first and second-round picks.
At least for now, the Canucks were better, but only just, when I watched this game.
- Arturs Silovs got the surprise call-up from the Abbotsford Canucks when Collin Delia got down with the sickness, except literally. It was an impressive performance from the young Latvian, matching Juuse Saros save for save and using his fantastic flexibility to repeatedly go into the splits to rob the Predators.
- “It’s just a part of my game, always being confident in my athleticism,” said Silovs. “I think it’s nothing new. I’m glad it works here [in the NHL].”
- An enterprising young fan snuck a banana into Rogers Arena and made a stellar post-deadline trade: Andrei Kuzmenko received the banana — future potassium considerations — and the fan received a stick.
- The energy boost seemed to help Kuzmenko. He hustled to a puck on the right wing a few minutes in and whipped a cross-ice pass to Elias Pettersson, who was given too much time and space by Cal Foote and took advantage. His wristshot was deadly accurate — quite possibly his most perfectly-placed shot ever — ringing the post in the top corner and ricocheting off the back bar and out. There was a moment’s hesitation to celebrate as play continued but the puck was more in than dry calloused feet, doing the damn dishes, and sobbing.
- Kuzmenko actually struggled quite a bit despite the assist and a glorious chance in the second that Saros robbed with a right toe save. “Kuzy turned the puck over three times in a row, so I just sat him for a little bit,” said Tocchet about some second-period line juggling. “He understood. He said, ‘Coach, my bad,’ you know. But I got him back out there.”
- As Pettersson’s goal was being announced in the building, the Predators tied it up like Christian Grey. Kuzmenko was interfered with and couldn’t receive Pettersson’s pass on the boards, leading to a scramble in the defensive zone. Anthony Beauvillier’s controller seemed to turn off and he allowed Colton Sissons to skate right past him to bang in a rebound after Cole Smith hit the post.
- Vasily Podkolzin put the Canucks back in the lead with a superb tip. He went straight to the slot, established position on his man Jeremy Lauzon, and would not be moved, even as Lauzon climbed all over him like scorplings on their mother. Kyle Burroughs sent a snap shot towards him, looking for the tip, and Podkolzin obliged.
- “I tipped it just like Kuzy,” quipped Podkolzin, referencing Kuzmenko’s league-leading 13 tip-in goals. “That’s a good moment for me.”
- Podkolzin and Vitali Kravtsov seem to have quickly established some chemistry, leading the Canucks in corsi percentage at 5-on-5 in this game and getting some opportunities late in regulation and in overtime. The two have been friends for some time and played together at the 2019 World Juniors in Vancouver, giving their reunion in Vancouver a sense of kismet.
- “He came with the Rangers, like, two weeks ago and I asked him what he thought about a trade,” said Podkolzin. “He’s like, ‘I don’t know, I’m just waiting.’ I said to him, it’s going to be funny if you’re gonna get traded here and he said, ‘No way, never.’ Ten days later, he called me and said, ‘I got traded to Vancouver.’ It’s funny history that we played together here and we’re playing in the NHL here right now. He’s a funny guy and great player.”
- The second period was, by the most literal definition, a period of hockey.
- Okay, a few things happened in the second period. There were a couple of post-whistle scrums where things get entirely too heated, like the Canucks were still riding the emotional high of playing the Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday. It led to Cole Smith challenging J.T. Miller to a fight and quickly regretting it when the fired-up Miller pummelled the larger Smith to the ice.
- There were also some great saves by both Silovs and Saros. Silovs made his best save on Matt Duchene, who was left open by Noah Juulsen and a stickless Dakota Joshua at the backdoor. Silovs lunged across to take the bottom of the net away with his left pad, then raised his glove to take away the top of the net.
- Nils Åman and Dakota Joshua combined for a superb goal to make it 3-1 in the third period. Åman drove down the right wing and sent a sleak backhand pass to Joshua, who made about the smoothest catch-and-release you’ll ever see outside of a fishing derby, cushioning the puck to pull it past the sliding Saros before shooting it between Ryan McDonagh’s legs and over Saros’s pad.
- “That was a great pass by Nils,” said Joshua. “It happened so fast and I got lucky it was on the ice. Goals are hard to come by in this league, so I’ll take it…You’re not really looking for the bottom six to put goals in the net, so when they come, it’s very fortunate and a good feeling.”
- The Predators pushed back hard to erase the two-goal deficit and got a couple of conversions from the appropriately-named Luke Evangelista — his first two goals in the NHL. First, Kuzmenko couldn’t get back to Evangelista on the backcheck to prevent him from tucking in a rebound off the rush. Then, Guillaume Brisebois had an ugly giveaway, putting the puck right in Tyson Barrie’s wheelhouse for a one-timer that Evangelista tipped in, along for the ride like he was travelling with Paul the Apostle.
- Despite a glorious backhand chance for Pettersson that Saros got just enough of to send off the post, overtime solved nothing. The game went to the shootout, where the Predators couldn’t solve Silovs. There wasn’t much solving going on at either end, really, with only Pettersson able to beat Saros with a sneakily-quick shot through the five-hole.
- “I just tried to simplify my shootout and just kind of wait and see what Saros was doing,” said Pettersson. “He’s beaten me two times this year in the shootout, so I’m happy I got third time’s the charm on it.”
