Like many of his counterparts around the NHL, Predators general manager David Poile isn’t sure if he should be selling or buying as next Wednesday’s trade deadline approaches.
For now then, he’s just going to do...nothing.
“We’re not in the playoffs right now,” Poile told The Tennessean. “Could we be in the next four games? Yes. But even if we’re not, I don’t think we’ll be very far out, maybe one or two points.
“The answer might be that status quo is a good position to be in.”
It would take a fair bit of wheeling and dealing to match the number of moves Poile made last year as he attempted to prove to pending free agents Ryan Suter and Shea Weber that the Predators were a team that was committed to winning.
Coming to Nashville via trade last year were defenseman Hal Gill and forwards Andrei Kostitsyn and Paul Gaustad.
And even if Poile wanted to be active this year, he’s not sure the market is right for deal-making.
“You just have to look at the standings and see how bunched together all the teams are,” he said.
Winners of three in a row (after four straight losses), the Preds have three games remaining before the deadline. They’re currently ninth in the Western Conference, tied in points with eighth-place San Jose; however, they’ve played two more games than the Sharks.