With all due to respect to Vinny Lecavalier, Nathan Horton, Danny Briere and other free agents this summer, the biggest difference-maker that the Nashville Predators should pursue is on the trade market: Boston Bruins forward Tyler Seguin.
On Sunday TSN’s Bob McKenzie suggested that the Boston Bruins are listening to offers for Tyler Seguin, who have a challenge keeping the bulk of their Cup-contending team together while coping with a falling salary cap. With just one goal and seven assists in Boston’s 22-game playoff run this spring, some see him as failing to live up to his potential.
Would it take an eye-popping offer to pry the former #2 overall pick from 2010 out Boston? Certainly. Over at Stanley Cup of Chowder, the interpretation was that this talk was more about GM Peter Chiarelli trying to motivate Seguin through the media than genuinely dangling him on the market:
Passive-aggressive comments aside, it appears that these rumors were the Bruins’ way of getting Seguin’s attention, figuring that if it wasn’t getting through to him internally, they may as well try externally. Moving Seguin now would free up a lot of cap space, but it would also leave a gaping hole in the Bruins’ offense, one that couldn’t be plugged with a scrap heap free agent.
What will be interesting is to see how Seguin responds to this situation. Will he use it as fuel, as he did in the past when he was snubbed from Canada’s World Junior team, or will he sulk and pout his way out of town?
Boston may be temporarily down on Seguin, but he’s worth a bold franchise-transforming deal, especially to a Predators team in dire need of a top-line quality forward.
Let’s review some Fancy Stats from Behind the Net:
| Season | GP | TOI/60 | Pts/60 | Corsi Rel | On-Ice Sht % | On-Ice Sv% | PDO | Pen Take | Pen Drawn | OZ Strt% | Shots/60 |
| 2013 | 48 | 14.33 | 2.27 | +20.6 | 9.7 | 943 | 1040 | 0.4 | 0.3 | 53.9 | 11.60 |
| 2012 | 81 | 14.05 | 2.69 | +18.4 | 10.8 | 915 | 1022 | 0.7 | 0.9 | 55.8 | 10.81 |
| 2011 | 74 | 10.73 | 1.44 | -6.5 | 6.1 | 945 | 1006 | 0.7 | 0.7 | 50.6 | 9.14 |
Those are some sexy, sexy numbers, which portray a forward who is growing into greater responsibility while driving extremely positive results for his team. On an outstanding puck-possession squad like the Bruins, Seguin is one of their leaders – check how resilient his Corsi-related stats are regardless of who he’s on the ice with. Every Boston player who spent a significant amount of time playing alongside Seguin over the last two seasons performed better with him than without him.
He’s not riding others’ coattails, he’s driving the bus.
He fires shots on net at the same dizzying rate as Patric Hornqvist, and is younger than any player on the Nashville roster save Filip Forsberg.
Yup, with 203 regular season and 42 playoff games under his belt, he’s even younger than Austin Watson.
What the Nashville Predators Should Offer In Trade
Let’s make this easy – the only guys I wouldn’t offer would be Shea Weber, Roman Josi, Seth Jones & Pekka Rinne. Outside of that, the conversation is wide open.
Filip Forsberg and next year’s 1st-round pick? Kevin Klein & Gabriel Bourque? Sergei Kostitsyn, Jon Blum, Matt Halischuk & a 4th-rounder? (just making sure you’re paying attention)
Two or three (or even four?) such assets would be well worth the price of obtaining Seguin, who is just coming into his own as a player.
The only downside to Nashville’s selection of defenseman Seth Jones with the 4th overall pick at Sunday’s NHL Draft was that last weekend was the Preds’ greatest chance in a long time to acquire a center capable of leading the team for the next 10 years. Given the circumstances that played out, they had to take Jones, but the need at forward is still there.
Tyler Seguin is just the type of dynamic player the Predators have traditionally lacked up front, and they should be willing to pay a steep price in order to acquire him. Boston may not even be seriously considering a deal, which is why David Poile should step forth with an offer they can’t refuse.