Nashville Predators claim forward Samuel Fagemo off waivers

Credit: Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports

The Nashville Predators claimed forward Samuel Fagemo off waivers from the Los Angeles Kings, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reported on Monday.

Fagemo, 23, spent most of the 2022-23 season with the AHL’s Ontario Reign. In 56 games, he scored 23 goals, nine assists for 32 points.

Over three seasons in the minors, he’s scored 60 goals, 34 assists for 94 points in 151 games. In 13 career NHL games, Fagemo has scored two goals and one assist for three points.

Fagemo was drafted in the second round by the Los Angeles Kings in the 2019 NHL Entry Draft.

Fagemo hopes to crack a Predators lineup that struggled to produce offense in 2022-23, finishing 27th in the league in goals while missing the playoffs for the first time since 2013-14.

The team had one player score more than 20 goals, Matt Duchene, and only two hit the 50-point mark, Duchene and captain Roman Josi. However, the Predators bought out Duchene in the summer, just four seasons into a seven-year, $56 million deal signed in 2019.

The Predators go into the 2023-24 season with new but familiar faces, hiring Barry Trotz as general manager and Andrew Brunette as head coach.

Trotz was Nashville’s first head coach, serving from 1997 to 2014. He replaces David Poile as GM, who served between 1997 and 2023. Trotz would go on to coach the Washington Capitals between 2014 and 2018, winning a Stanley Cup with the team in 2017-18. After not being able to settle on a contract extension, Trotz would resign and coach the New York Islanders between 2018 and 2022.

Brunette, who scored the Predators’ first ever goal in their inaugural 1998-99 season, was hired as head coach in May 2023. He retired as a player in 2012, working within the Minnesota Wild organization between 2012 and 2019. In 2019, he was hired by the Florida Panthers as an assistant coach for Joel Quenneville’s staff. However, when Quenneville resigned in October 2021, Brunette took over, leading the Panthers to a division title and a second-round loss in the playoffs to the Tampa Bay Lightning.