David Poile is looking to make an Expansion Draft deal with the Kraken
The Vegas Golden Knights fleeced a lot of teams at the Expansion Draft back in 2017.
As a result, multiple general managers around the league have stated they learned a lesson and won’t be making side deals with the Seattle Kraken this time around. It seems David Poile of the Nashville Predators isn’t one of those general managers.
On Thursday, Poile appeared on ESPN 102.5 The Game to speak about trading @Victor Arvidsson to Los Angeles. He also touched on his Expansion Draft strategy, stating he would like to make a side deal with Seattle to have a certain player selected…
“Ideally, if we could strike a deal to determine a certain player who we would lose, I’d like to do that,” Poile said.
Trading Arvidsson away was already a move seemingly with the Expansion Draft in mind. The Predators have a lot of quality defenders eligible to be selected and they’re likely best rolling with the eight-skater protection scheme. Moving Arvidsson for draft picks means one less player to worry about protecting.
One move that Poile could have in mind is ponying up some draft picks in order to get Seattle to take @Matt Duchene’s massive contract. Duchene is two years deep into the seven-year, $56,000,000 deal he signed back in 2019 and he’s only scored 55 points over 100 games with the Predators.
Getting out from under that contract would give Poile a lot more wiggle room this summer than he currently has.