The Pittsburgh Penguins were rumoured to be shopping forward James Neal leading up to the NHL Entry Draft and on Draft Day, the trigger was pulled and Neal found himself a member of the Nashville Predators after the first day's proceedings. Neal was sent to Nashville for forwards Patric Hornqvist and Nick Spaling.
Neal, a 26-year old scoring winger, scored 27 goals and 61 points in 59 games for the Penguins, ranking 56th overall in points, 40th among forwards. At the end of the day, the new guy in charge, Jim Rutherford, pegged him as a player that could be switched out for other assets and get a reasonable return in a deal. Neal's contract, which has four years left at $5 million per season, obviously wasn't a sticking point, likely because of such a high offensive upside to his game.In return, the Penguins didn't do too badly, getting gritty forward Hornqvist and restricted free agent forward Spaling. Hornqvist, who has a similar deal to Neal, scored 22 goals and 53 points in 76 games last season, ranking him 68th among forwards. Spaling was a 13-goal scorer last season, ranking 179th in scoring among forwards and is now up for a new deal, which will render the deal a hockey move and not so much a salary dump.
There doesn't seem to be much separating the two big names in the deal, looking at last year's numbers and what would be the harm in trying to find a suitable winger for Evgeni Malkin in Pittsburgh, while the Predators find some bonafide talent that they have been needing for a while.
Well, now I only have projected rosters to talk about, as the salary cap number has been announced for the coming year, coming in low at $69 million. With the move, which only has one signed player in the deal, gives the Penguins 14 signed players coming in at $54.4 million, giving them only $14.6 million left in cap space. The Predators, on the other hand, have 18 players signed on, including Neal, and still have $18.1 million left in cap space. That's good financial sense in Music City.
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