Nashville Predators acquire Isaac Ratcliffe from the Philadelphia Flyers

The Nashville Predators have acquired winger Isaac Ratcliffe from the Philadelphia Flyers for future considerations.

While far from the biggest news of the weekend for the Predators, there is some relevance to it, although it’s mostly just for depth reasons. With the couple trades they’ve made, the Preds had just 43 standard player contracts, so they had plenty of room to take on a player for free.

On the flip side, the Flyers sat at 48 before the deal, so it frees up a bit more flexibility for them to make some moves and take on some contracts if they get a few in exchange for one of the players they’re selling at the deadline. Frank Seravalli’s most recent trade targets list had James van Riemsdyk, Joel Farabee, and Nick Seeler as their top names as the deadline quickly approaches this Friday.

Ratcliffe is a former second round pick for the Flyers, selected in 2017, and has mostly been an AHL player in his career. He’s played just 10 games in his NHL career, all in 2021-22 where he scored a goal and had three assists for four points. He had just two goals, two assists, and four points in 26 games this season for the Lehigh Valley Phantoms in the AHL.

As mentioned before, the Preds had some much bigger news over the weekend. On Saturday, they traded Nino Niederreiter to the Winnipeg Jets for a second round pick, and on Sunday they announced that David Poile would be retiring as general manager, with Barry Trotz taking over the role, and they also traded Tanner Jeannot to the Tampa Bay Lightning for five draft picks and Cal Foote.

If selling off pieces didn’t make it obvious, the Predators seem well set on missing the playoffs, although whether they are just going to be retooling and pushing for a playoff spot next season or focusing on a long-term rebuild is yet to be determined. They sit six points out of a playoff spot with a 29-22-6 record, good for fifth in the Central Division.