Daily Faceoff: Frank Seravalli and Mike McKenna on Daily Faceoff Live on Nashville Predators defenseman Mattias Ekholm being included on the top trade targets list ahead of the March 3rd NHL trade deadline.
** NHLRumors.com transcription
McKenna: “Frank, the countdowns on. We’re two months away from the NHLs trade deadline and your new trade targets board is going to be up at DailyFaceoff.com. Who’s the new big name on the list?
Seravalli: “Yeah Mike, it’s really interesting. Mattias Ekholm joins the list this week from the Nashville Predators. I’m told the Preds are in a spot where they’re going to have to make some really difficult decisions.
And this may surprise some people because Ekholm is in the first year of a four-year deal at $6.25 million. But you look at where the Preds are at in the standings and I mentioned some of the difficult questions that they’re going to have to ask themselves with Ryan McDonagh also north of $6 million. Of course Roman Josi on the backend.
A team that may need to head in a different direction and begin to rebuild a little bit. Begin to pluck some pieces off and go in a different way. Having three defensemen on your blue line that basically average $6.5 million or more, is probably pretty problematic moving forward.
And so, I’m told the Preds are exploring their options on the backend. I think Ryan McDonagh is probably less likely to move given that he waived his no-trade clause in order to come to Nashville. Probably got settled and is not thinking that he’s going to be moving.
But Ekholm does not have any no-trade protection. So I think that’s important to point out as part of this new contract that he has with the Preds. And Ekholm debuts on our now trade targets board in 2023 inside the top 10.