Preds Laying Low

There is one thing that can be said about the Nashville Predators and that is that they have one hell of a core group of players, especially on the blueline. The Preds may be short on returning talent at the moment, but this could be the right time to throw in a bunch of their younger players and see if they sink or swim. Colin Wilson, Jonathan Blum, and Cody Franson lead a group of players that could very well make a big jump this year and they could also have significant benefits to the team. Whether or not they do won't be seen until training camp, but it's certainly an idea.

The Preds have not been very active on the free agent market, only signing Ben Guite to a deal is the biggest UFA signing on their roster sheet below.

Forwards	Defense	Goaltenders
J-P Dumont	Shea Weber	Pekka Rinne
Jason Arnott	Ryan Suter	Dan Ellis
Martin Erat	Dan Hamhuis
David Legwand	Kevin Klein
Joel Ward
Steve Sullivan
Jordin Tootoo
Jared Smithson
Ben Guite

Being a team without much activity on the market means that their overall cap number is low and it's really low at the moment. The 15 players listed above don't even reach the cap floor, sitting at $38.2 million. They aren't very far away from the cap floor, so reaching it in signing eight players won't be an issue, it's just where they stand at the moment.

Key RFAs still to sign for the Predators include Ryan Jones and Antti Pihlstrom, both players figured into more than 45 games each last season.