The recruitment of Jimmy Vesey was in high gear yesterday in Nashville, even if Predators GM David Poile wasn’t.
The Preds didn’t add any significant pieces on deadline day. The way Poile spun it, they didn’t want to do anything that might dissuade Vesey from joining the club after his Harvard season ends.
“The biggest thing in this trading deadline is that we did not want to give away Vesey’s position on our team,” Poile told The Tennessean. “We have a place for him to come in and play. We feel he is as good or better than anybody we could have gotten in a trade. We want to sign him when he gets out of school. We’ve told him we have a place for him and I didn’t want to take away that place.”
It was not the first time Poile had relayed that message. The Preds have until Aug. 15 to sign Harvard’s leading scorer, otherwise the 22-year-old senior can become a free agent, assuming he graduates.
The last possible day Vesey could play for Harvard is April 9, which also happens to be last day of the Predators’ regular season.