Nashville Predators general manager David Poile characterized Shea Weber's concussion as a "tremendous challenge" for his team during a segment on 102.5 The Game's "Sports Revolution" with Willy Daunic & Joe Dubin this afternoon. He also talked about the possibility for acquiring a veteran defenseman or Top 6 forward via trade, assets which were already in demand even before this latest setback.
You can listen to the audio at the following link:
The audio from this segment was lost irretrievably, I regret the error of posting this before verifying that the audio file I had been sent was OK. - Dirk
To summarize, Poile mentioned that acquiring a veteran defenseman and a Top 6 forward were priorities of his, but that up until now, there have been very few trading partners out there to work with, because so few teams really consider themselves out of the playoff chase at this point. The other difficulty, of course, is that "there are about 20 other teams" out there looking for the exact same assets. Particularly on defense, you can bet that Philadelphia, for example, is highly motivated to find a replacement for Chris Pronger.
Notably, Poile mentioned that the best opportunity to really shape your team is in July and August, and until then you really have to wait until close to the trade deadline.
Again, you have my sincerest apologies for the mess-up on the audio from this interview.
Kevin Klein placed on Injured Reserve
And in a further bit of news to set your speculative juices flowing, the team has today placed defenseman Kevin Klein on Injured Reserve (he hasn't played since December 17, so could conceivably come back off IR immediately). That brings the number of players on the Active Roster to 22, leaving one space available for a move once the holiday roster freeze expires at midnight. Could this just have been a precautionary maneuver ahead of tomorrow's game in case someone was needed from Milwaukee? Could it be the precursor for a trade? Who knows...