Predators Busy Adding Bonino & Hartnell

The Nashville Predators are not taking losing the Stanley Cup Finals lightly, as they have been busy this summer and Saturday saw all kinds of good stuff coming along for them.

The Predators added forwards Nick Bonino and Scott Hartnell on free agent deals, traded away Colin Wilson to open up a little bit more space and then acquired defenseman Alexei Emelin from Vegas in a deal.

The main pieces of this blog is the two signings, as Bonino was the big one, signing a 4-year deal, worth $16.4 million in total, coming over from the champions, who beat the Predators less than a month ago.  The second signing of Hartnell, was a good cheap deal, 1 year at $1 million, as the 35-year old was bought out last week, just ahead of the free agency window opening.

Bonino scored 18 goals and 37 points in Pittsburgh last season, ranking him 151st among all forwards in scoring, while Hartnell wasn't too far behind, 13 goals and 37 points with Columbus.

Both players should add some quality depth to this Predators team, which still needs to re-sign Ryan Johansen and Viktor Arvidsson this summer and once those deals are done, this team will be ready to compete for the big prize again.

Forwards	Cap	Defense	Cap	Goalies	Cap
Filip Forsberg	6.000	P.K. Subban	9.000	Pekka Rinne	7.000
Craig Smith	4.250	Roman Josi	4.000	Juuse Saros	0.693
Nick Bonino	4.100	Mattias Ekholm	3.750
Calle Jarnkrok	2.000	Alexei Emelin	3.000
Scott Hartnell	1.000	Ryan Ellis	2.500
Kevin Fiala	0.863	Matt Irwin	0.650
Cody McLeod	0.800	Yannick Weber	0.650
Justin Kirkland	0.718	Petter Granberg	0.613
Colton Sissons	0.625
Cody Bass	0.613
Miikka Salomaki	0.613

With two open spots left on their projected roster, I am showing the Predators still with $18.7 million left in cap space, which will be more than enough for both Johanssen and Arvidsson this summer.  There could be a few more moves still to be made by the Predators, but they could also hold on to some of that space too, take it into the regular season and trade deadline for more value.

The back end of this Predators team is just so impressive.  Two fantastic goalies, four offensive defensemen and a good supporting cast past those four.  Nashville will definitely be a popular team, when it comes to the hockey pool draft, as we could see a good number of Preds go in the first three or four rounds.