Derek Roy Also to Nashville

Two weeks on into unrestricted free agency and the Nashville Predators are still pushing their shopping cart through the aisles, pulling down another veteran forward in Derek Roy on Tuesday, signing him to a 1-year, $1 million deal.

Roy spent the 2014 season with the St. Louis Blues, where he scored 9 goals and 37 points in 75 games, playing more of a depth role on the team.  In some circles, he may be considered to be more of a fringe player, but with the Predators, I think there is a good chance that he'll lift himself into a viable hockey pool option again.

With the team already adding Mike Ribeiro on Tuesday, the addition of Roy makes the team a little more interesting on paper and it will also be a reasonable match-up against some of the other Central Division contenders.  I don't believe that today's signings will make Nashville into a viable division contender, but the conversation for a wild card spot in the West will have the Predators as an option.

The addition of Roy gives the Predators a 14th forward on their projected roster, which means that players will have to start coming off, if they continue to shop up front.  Their projected roster now has 21 players at a cap hit of $52.2 million, just off of the cap floor and more than enough space for a couple more defenders.

The additions of Roy, Ribeiro, Olli Jokinen and Anton Volchenkov have been huge for the Predators in this off-season and I believe a fair question to ask would be, "did they use a coupon for these guys?"  Between these four players, they only managed to take $5.5 million from this year's cap space, which means they're doing their homework for value.