Just when the live blogging was going so well... I had to change it up and do a fast look at the trade announced right before the Predators drafted...
Nashville makes the first trade during the draft sending Patric Hornqvist and Nick Spaling to Pittsburgh for James Neal. Well… the Preds wanted offense… Neal has scored 40, 21 and 27 goals in the last three seasons… add in three more 20+ goal seasons for Dallas, and you can safely call him a solid goal scorer. Especially when you look at goals per game, looking at that, you get a 32 goal per year scorer.
Trading Patric Hornqvist and Nick Spaling seems a fairly high price to pay at first look. Hornqvist is one of Nashville’s highest scorers averaging a little over 23 goals per season using his goals per game average. Spaling averages 8 per season. So the scoring looks like a wash, considering some of the messaging coming from both sides in Spaling’s RFA negotiations, you can’t be surprised by this move.
Now that the shock has worn off a bit. This looks like a solid move. Neal is only 26 years old and, when healthy… has the capability to be a lethal goal scorer. You have to wonder if David Poile did do some brain picking with his former assistant GM, former Pittsburgh GM Ray Shero. I do question the “heart and soul… factor though as both Spaling and Hornqvist fall into that category but as I wrote when the coaching change went down… if you are going to change… change! Hornqvist and Spaling will be missed as they have been solid players and better members of the Nashville community.
Now, let’s move on to Predators first round pick, 17 year old Kevin Fiala. A smallish center that plays bigger than his size, Fiala was ranked in the top three of European Skaters. He played for HV71 in the Swedish Elite League averaging almost a point per game. He played for Sweden in the World Juniors, the World Under 18’s and in the World Championships, only the third player to ever play in all three of these tournaments in the same year. Tremendous offensive upside with a gritty edge.
The Predators have two picks in the second round on Saturday.
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