The anti-Maple Leafs and Oilers: Nashville Predators GM David Poile fleeces way to another trade win
If you’re looking for a winner in the blockbuster trade involving Matt Duchene, Kyle Turris and so many prospects and draft picks, don’t look at the Ottawa Senators or the Colorado Avalanche. While both those teams definitely made the most out of ugly situations, it was the Nashville Predators that came out of nowhere and actually made themselves significantly better.
Yes, David Poile won another one. It wasn’t even close this time.
By now, it’s starting to sound like a broken record for the Predators GM who has made a reputation out of fleecing teams of their best players. In the last four years, Poile has acquired Filip Forsberg, Ryan Johansen, P.K. Subban and now Turris in stop-what-you’re-doing type deals. That’s a top-line winger, a No. 1 centre, a Norris Trophy-winning defenceman and a No. 2 centre.
And they say you can’t make trades in today’s NHL.
Poile not only makes them. He makes them in November, often with players carrying complicated cap hits.
Take note, Toronto and Edmonton: this is how you go from playoff contender to challenging for a Stanley Cup. You don’t sit on depth. You use it to fill voids in another area.
In this May 28 file photo, Nashville Predators GM David Poile (right) answers questions at the Stanley Cup final.
Had Poile been running the Maple Leafs — a position he was once offered before starting with the expansion Predators — he likely would have used the plethora of forwards at the team’s disposal to acquire a top-four defenceman. Had he been the GM of the Oilers, he would have swapped prospects or draft picks for someone who could play with Connor McDavid by now.
After all, it’s what he’s been doing all these years for the Nashville.
Patience isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It keeps general managers from making mistakes. But at the same time, it can prevent teams from taking steps forward. Poile, who once traded for Rod Langway 10 days after being hired by the Washington Capitals, is not a gambler. He’s just doing what every GM in the NHL says they’re doing, by going out and actively trying to make his team better.
When the Predators had more defencemen than there were minutes to go around, they traded Seth Jones to the Blue Jackets in 2015-16 for Johansen, who had a team-high 61 points last season. When the Predators needed to get faster and more mobile on the backend, they moved Shea Weber before the start of last season to Montreal for Subban, who is four years younger.
The Turris trade is a continuation of this. It addressed a glaring need. The Predators reached the final last year because of their all-star defence corps, but they became exposed at the centre position after losing Johansen to injury. According to reports, Nashville had initially been seeking Duchene. But when the price became too high, the team joined forces with Ottawa and sent a combination of assets to Colorado in a three-way deal that resulted in the Senators getting Duchene and the Predators ending up with the next-best option in Turris.
For a team that was feeling the after-effects of last year’s Cup final, it was the equivalent of swallowing an Aspirin.
The Predators, who lost forward James Neal to Vegas in the expansion draft and are without top-four defenceman Ryan Ellis for the first-half of the season, needed a jolt. They are one of the worst offensive teams so far this year and until recently had not looked like the team that came within two wins of winning the Cup.
Other GMs would have been patient and waited for the ship to right itself. Poile only waited a month before going out and making the team better.
In Turris, the Predators landed a centre who scored 27 goals and 55 points last season and who has nine points in 11 games this year. He slots in behind Johansen, giving Nashville a 1-2 punch down the middle. It also allows centre Nick Bonino, who was acquired in the off-season, to go back to the third-line role he played in Pittsburgh last season.
You can argue the Senators also improved by swapping Duchene for Turris. But it cost them a first- and a third-round pick in 2018, as well as 18-year-old Shane Bowers, who was selected 28th overall in this year’s draft. That’s a steep price for a player who might be considered a two-year rental player, unless Ottawa can re-sign Duchene before he becomes a UFA at the end of next season.
In this Oct. 28 file photo, Colorado Avalanche centre Matt Duchene (left) controls the puck against the Chicago Blackhawks.
The Predators, meanwhile, sent a second-round pick and two minor-league prospects to Colorado — Vladislav Kamenev and Samuel Girard, who were both drafted in the second round — for someone who is only two years older than Duchene, who had a far better season last year and is off to a better start this year.
At any rate, it was a bold move by everyone involved. The hope here is that it spurs others to make similar moves. With 10 teams that were in the playoffs last year currently on the outside looking in, there should be plenty of takers.
Maybe the Leafs, who head into Monday’s game against the Vegas Golden Knights with five losses in their last six games, will finally go out and get that stud defenceman that could turn them into Cup contenders. Maybe the Oilers, who have the second-worst record in the NHL, will get the kind of help that ensures last year’s second-round appearance was not a fluke.
Or maybe they’ll continue sitting on their hands and telling their fans that trades are not easy to come by in today’s NHL.
• Email: mtraikos@postmedia.com | Twitter: @michael_traikos