With waiver transactions completed for today, the Nashville Predators appear to be ready to head into Thursday’s season opener against Minnesota.
There were a few surprises over the last week, including yesterday’s waiving of long-time veteran Miikka Salomaki and P.K. Subban trade-piece Steven Santini. Both have cleared waivers and will join the Milwaukee Admirals this week.
Other noteworthy decisions include last year’s AHL MVP forward Daniel Carr on the Predators opening night roster. Further, Frederick Gaudreau and Admirals captain Jarred Tinordi have been assigned to Milwaukee.
A surprising development was the exclusion of the young prospects that participated in last month’s development camp. Eeli Tolvanen, Rem Pitlick, Frederic Allard and Anthony Richard were among the candidates with strong development and training camp stints. All were sent down to Milwaukee to begin the season (after a brief call-up for the final preseason game).
The obvious question is what the Predators plan to do with the open roster spot (the limit is 23). So far, there’s been no indication from the team, so it is worth watching.
(Note: Stayed tuned this week. I’ll take a deeper dive at the roster and how it grades out statistically)
Here’s Nashville’s roster as it stands today:
Nashville Predators Opening Night Roster
| Forwards | Projected Line | Defense | Projected Pair | Goalies |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Craig Smith | First | Roman Josi | First | Pekka Rinne |
| Ryan Johansen | First | Ryan Ellis | First | Juuse Saros |
| Viktor Arvidsson | First | Mattias Ekholm | Second | |
| Filip Forsberg | Second | Dante Fabbro | Second | |
| Matt Duchene | Second | Dan Hamhuis | Third | |
| Mikael Granlund | Second | Yannick Weber | Third | |
| Rocco Grimaldi | Third | Matt Irwin | Scratch/Third | |
| Kyle Turris | Third | |||
| Calle Jarnkrok | Third | |||
| Colton Sissons | Fourth | |||
| Nick Bonino | Fourth | |||
| Austin Watson | Fourth | |||
| Daniel Carr | Scratch/Third |