Thoughts A Brewin’: Cap Situation Post-Glass Trade

The Nashville Predators are clearly in win-now mode.

Barry Trotz, in his second summer as an NHL general manager, is showing no signs of slowing down. He made headlines on July 1 by setting a spending record for the franchise, and now he has continued revamping the roster by trading forward Cody Glass to the Pittsburgh Penguins. 

Prior to Spenser Stastney and the Predators receiving their arbitration ruling and dealing Glass to Pittsburgh, Nashville had $1,393,301 in available salary cap space with 19 players signed as they prepared to enter the 2024-25 season. 

After signing Stastney (a salary cap hit of $825,000 this season) and offloading Glass’ $2.5M salary, the Predators now have $3,068,301 to spend with a possible four available roster spots. The most obvious players who remain without contracts are Juuso Parssinen, Philip Tomasino and Marc Del Gaizo. The Predators qualified all three pending restricted free agents last month, but deals have yet to be reached. 

The most likely scenario is that all three are signed under their qualifying offers. If all three were to be signed at this number, then the total cap hit of those signings would be $2,501,625, falling well within the $3M and change that’s left. Even if Parsinnen signs for a bit more than qualifying, as I previously projected, it wouldn’t significantly alter the situation. 

The goal to some extent, even if future deals are made, is to approach the salary cap as closely as possible. The closer a team is to the cap, the more they are able to utilize long-term injured reserve in the unfortunate event a player gets hurt at the beginning of the season. 

If we’ve learned anything over the last year, it’s that Barry Trotz the general manager is not risk averse in his new position. With a little less than two months until opening night, there’s likely much more to come.

Follow Clay Brewer on Twitter/X: @ClayBrewer10

Be sure to follow Nashville Hockey Now on X/Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram.