On the Nashville Predators …
Adam Vingan of The Tennessean: Defenseman Ryan Ellis has a year left on his contract and is eligible to sign a contract extension on July 1st. Ellis said he open to start extension talks this offseason.
“I love it here,” Ellis said Saturday. “My fiancée loves it here. If it was my wish, I’d finish my career here. So we’ll see what happens.”
GM David Poile has already spoken with Ellis and his agent and plans to have more talks.
“Ryan has another year remaining in his contract, but I too have talked to Ryan,” Predators general manager David Poile said Monday. “I’ve talked to his agent, and that’s something we’ll certainly look at during this offseason.”
Poile said yesterday that pending UFAs Scott Hartnell and Alexei Emelin won’t be back next season. Hartnell said he may contemplate retirement.
Robby Stanley of The Tennessean: After meeting with players, GM Poile and coach Laviolette said that players are hoping there isn’t a lot of change.
“A lot of the players expressed to us in the team meeting that they really believed in our team,” Poile said Monday. “They loved our team. They thought our chemistry, our culture, was really good. If I was trying to frame it correctly, basically I think what they were saying to the general manager and to the coach is they didn’t want to see a lot of changes.”
Joe Rexrode of The Tennessean: The Predators are not actively looking to trade defenseman P.K. Subban.
You can’t say for certain that they wouldn’t trade Subban as Poile or any other GM would listen to offers on any of his players. It’s hard to see a team willing to grossly overpay for Subban, but it’s possible.
Coach Peter Laviolette was asked about the Subban report that came out recently.
“Where’s he going?” Laviolette said.
“P.K. is here, for me,” Laviolette continued. “Listen, he’s been here for two years, and we’re moving in a pretty good direction here with him as part of our club. He’s been awesome. His regular season, I thought, was really good last year; he might have been the best player on our team in the playoffs last year, just with regard to the way he and (Mattias) Ekholm played and defended. From that playoffs it went right into the regular season this year. He’s up for the Norris Trophy.”