Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports

The Nashville Predators have an ample amount of problems to address this summer and David Poile implied to The Tennessean Monday that backup goaltending will be among the issues dealt with. With that said, it appears that Nashville will let unrestricted free agent Chris Mason walk on July 5 and will sign a new backup via free agency.

Poile certainly has a case. In 11 games this year, Mason posted a substandard 3.73 GAA and .873 SV% en route to a 1-7-1 record. Concerning his second stint with Nashville, his gargantuan beard remains the sole focal point.

With Mason out of the picture, the Predators need to be aggressive and work quickly when unrestricted free agency opens on July 5. There is a modest collection of backup goaltenders on the market this year. Among the available include Ray Emery, Nikolai Khabibulan, Jose Theodore, Anton Khudobin, Dan Ellis, Mathieu Garon, Jason Labarbera, Brian Boucher, Thomas Greiss and Michael Leighton, assuming those mentioned are not resigned by their most recent clubs.

Judging Poile’s past free agent tendencies, it’s safe to say that Dan Ellis and Mark Dekanich are in candidacy. Nashville brought back Mason last year by signing him to a one-year, $1.25 million contract last summer on the opening day of free agency. Ellis and Dekanich, both former Predators, will likely be looking for work on July 5.

Nashville is notorious for bargain signings and squeezing as much value out of recycled players as humanly possible. Dekanich played with the Winnipeg Jets’ affiliate St. John’s IceCaps last season and has only played in one career NHL game. However, the window of opportunity to play meaningful hockey for the 27-year-old netminder is quickly closing and the Predators may be able to cash in on a familiar face desperate for an NHL jersey.

As for Ellis, the 32-year-old veteran amassed a 3.13 GAA and 906 SV% in 19 games for the Carolina Hurricanes last season. The Canes have made no effort to resign Ellis and it appears he is a lock to hit the open market next month. Unlike Dekanich, Poile will probably have competition on this one.

So what should the only general manager the Predators’ organization has ever known do? If it were me, I wouldn’t go the former Predator route, but leave it as a viable backup plan. The most sought after goalie will be current Chicago Blackhawks backup Ray Emery and competing for his services financially would not be the Predator way.

No, the ideal backup goaltender should be Jason Labarbera. As the Phoenix Coyotes continue to be distracted by relocation issues, it is becoming more apparent every day they will allow their stellar backup to test free agent waters. Labarbera was spectacular in 2013, which warranted a 2.64 GAA and .923 SV%. The 33-year-old will be exiting a similar system and would be more than happy backing up Pekka Rinne.

David Poile will hopefully pursue the services of Labarbera or something similar in Boucher, Khabibulan or Greiss. If he cannot compete with the heavy spenders around the league, however, expect the backup plan to be another former Predator making his return to Music City.

Michael Martin is a Nashville Predators writer for RantSports.com. Follow him/her on Twitter @mmartinutk, “Like” him on Facebook or add him to your network on Google 

James Guillory-USA TODAY Sports

While it still doesn’t address their issues on the offensive end, the Nashville Predators recently made a solid addition when they acquired defenseman T.J. Brennan from the Florida Panthers in exchange for forward Bobby Butler, who had joined the Predators during the 2013 season.

Both players were acquired by their respective teams before being swapped for each other back on June 14th. In Brennan, the Predators get a player without a ton of experience, but some pretty good upside as a defenseman. He has the potential to be an offensive asset on the blue line.

Brennan’s experience isn’t exactly extensive, playing in 29 games in 2013, 19 of them coming with the Panthers. He finished with nine points with the Cats, including a pair of goals. He was an asset with the man advantage, with three of his six assists coming on the power play.

Though he logged a decent chunk of time in 2013, Brennan is still a relatively raw player. He was a second round pick back in 2007 and is still coming into his own as an all-around player. As of right now, he’s primarily useful in an offensive role from the blue line, but isn’t limited to moving the puck.

He can play the physical game if he has to, and is willing to give up the body to play in the corners or block shots. Still, he fits in with this team as a guy who will move the puck from the blue line and has a big shot from the point. Given how little Butler brought to the table offensively, this trade could end up being a steal for the Preds.

Now they just have to get him signed, as he’s a restricted free agent this summer.

Don McPeak-USA TODAY Sports

With the 2013 NHL season nearly over, it is time to look back on players who did more than their team’s record showed. The main candidate for this kind of comparison would be the Nashville Predators’ Pekka Rinne. It was up to him to keep Nashville in a lot of games this season due to injuries and a lack of production overall from the offense. He may have had his struggles late in the season due to an aching left hip, but offseason surgery should have him ready to go when next season begins.

Rinne was just 15-16-8 this season with a 2.43 goals against average. They weren’t his best numbers obviously, especially after having 43 wins the year before, but I think the hip had a lot to do with the problems he was having late in the year. He gave up 13 goals in the last three games he played. It didn’t help matters when the team won just two of their last 12 games.

You can expect that Rinne will be right back to his usual ways next season for the Predators. I’m sure the team will be better, especially with a solid top-defense pairing of Roman Josi and Shea Weber to protect him for most of the game. Obviously, the offense needs to be much better because you don’t win games when you are the second-worst team in the league in goals per game. I think Rinne will be back ,winning 30-35 games during the 2013-14 team, and the Predators will slip into the playoffs again after missing out this year.

Andy Schmidt is a columnist/writer for RantSports. Follow him on Twitter @ASchmidtSports, like his Facebook page or add him to your network on Google.

Randy Sartin-USA TODAY Sports

After Ryan Suter left the Nashville Predators before this season began in free agency, there was a hole in the main defensive line. That hole was filled by Roman Josi and he was rewarded with a seven-year contract worth $28 million to continue playing alongside Shea Weber for years to come. This is probably going to be the smartest move that the Predators make all offseason.

Josi is just 23 years old and Nashville has now secured a major piece of their future. He scored 18 points this season for Nashville during his second year in the league. He is young and still evolving into a star player, but there has to be something said about getting a major deal like that after just two seasons. The Predators see something there and now know that they will have their top defensemen together for the next seven years. Weber had his 14-year offer sheet matched by the team last offseason so Nashville can now focus on improving their offense.

The team also has goaltender Pekka Rinne under a long-term deal as well, and now if the Predators can go out in free agency and pick up another offensive force, I wouldn’t be shocked if we see Nashville in the playoffs next season. I hope that they haven’t spent all the money on this Josi deal and the other deals around him, though.

They were really bad on offense this season and need to fix that. I like this move a lot with Josi, but there are definitely other moves that need to be made between now and the beginning of next season.

Andy Schmidt is a columnist/writer for RantSports. Follow him on Twitter @ASchmidtSports, like his Facebook page or add him to your network on Google.

Jason O. Watson-USA TODAY Sports

There are smart personnel moves made all the time in professional sports. The Nashville Predators may have just made one of the smartest moves in hiring Scott Nichol as their director of player development.

Nichol just retired from the St. Louis Blues and played for the Predators from 2005-09. The job had been open for a year, and putting Nichol into this spot gives Nashville someone who completely understands everything about the organization.

Nichol played in 662 career games and had 211 points. The key to this is obviously that Nichol played with the team for a long time. He is only 38-years old, so he could be in this job for a long time if things work out for him. This is an important move for a team that struggled all season in scoring goals. The Predators have to hope that Nichol can look at the team’s minor league players and identify a couple who can help the team now.

The team can’t leave all the pressure to Pekka Rinne again next season, especially with the goalie coming off an injury. Nichol knows what to say to young players about his struggles coming into the league, and maybe he can inspire some new talent for the Predators. It sounds like they had been waiting for Nichol to retire so they could fill this position because he was seen as the right choice.

The next couple of years will be the true indication of how smart this decision was for the Predators. I have to think that Nashville did the right thing with this hire. They won’t regret it.

Andy Schmidt is a columnist/writer for RantSports. Follow him on Twitter @ASchmidtSports, like his Facebook page or add him to your network on Google.

Don McPeak-USA TODAY Sports

The strike-shortened 2013 NHL campaign turned out to be quite the come-down for the Nashville Predators.

After reaching the playoffs in seven of the previous eight seasons, Nashville crashed to second-to-last place in the Western Conference with 41 points this year. While many factors go into a plummet like this, the fact that goaltender Pekka Rinne‘s hip weighed him down even during the abridged season and eventually required offseason surgery played a big role in dooming this spring for the Predators.

“It was progressing from the year earlier, and a year is a pretty short period of time,” Rinne said, via The Tennessean. “It was getting worse and the MRI pictures kind of showed that. … I just wanted to be able to play a lot of games and not have something in the back of my mind to worry about.”

Rinne expects to bounce back in a huge way after his succesful hip surgery and the full offseason of recovery that is to come. It’s reasonable to bank on the veteran netminder returning closer to his 2012-2013 form when he went 43-18-8 with a .923 save percentage and 2.39 goals-against average, compared to his most recent marks of 15-16-8, .910 and 2.43 GAA.

“I was disappointed that I can’t have a normal summer and do all the things I usually do in the offseason, but you just have to do as good a job as you can,” Rinne said. “There are still plenty of things that after a month or six weeks … we’ll see how much more intensive the rehab and training gets. Every week I get to do a lot more, and I’m just hoping that by July and August I can start training a little more and more. It still gives me time to get ready.”

Russell LaBounty-USA TODAY Sports

The Nashville Predators and Washington Capitals made one of the more surprising moves of April’s trade deadline, in a deal that made virtually no sense for the latter. The Preds managed to snake a high upside forward that had yet to reach the NHL, while surrendering veteran Martin Erat.

While giving up Erat hurt a team struggling for offense at the time, the future outlook now looks much better with the likes of Filip Forsberg in the mix. He was considered a steal when the Caps drafted him at no. 11 overall last summer. He’s now considered even more of a steal after this trade.

The Predators are not a team built around offense. Mostly because they simply haven’t had the offensive talent, and their mid-level guys are unable to succeed in the system currently in place. That could change a bit with a high offensive upside guy like Forsberg now on the roster.

Forsberg appeared in only five games for the Predators during the 2013 season. It was a brief showing, but sets him up for a full time jump next season. He had one assist and a minus-5 rating over that span. Which means he fit right in with a stagnant Predators offensive attack.

In the long term, this isn’t a guy who’s going to continue to be held down on the stat sheet that way. He could stand to pack a little more meat onto his 6’1″ frame, but he’s going to be an offensive force in this league. He can play down around the net and plays well in his own end. But what’s going to make Forsberg the money in this league is his playmaking ability.

Forsberg is a guy that you can pencil into middle of this top six for the next decade. He’s an excellent playmaker and very intelligent with the puck. Not only that, he had an absolutely fantastic shot. It will be interesting to see how the Preds plan to set him up for success, as this kid has a future as an offensive force.

Which means the Predators need to do everything in their power to set him up for success this summer. Perhaps tweak the system a bit, but more importantly, get the necessary offensive talent around him. If not, his development will be hampered greatly.

Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports

The Nashville Predators kept an old fan-favorite on board as Scott Nichol transitions from player to player development. In the span of an offseason, Nichol has transitioned St. Louis Blues center to Predators director of player development, recalling the stretch of the 38-year-old’s life when from 2005-2009 Nichol score 24 of his 56 career goals in a Predators uniform — earning praise for the cerebral part of his game along the way.

The team issued a press release addressing the hire.

“As an organization that prides itself on developing homegrown talent, Scott Nichol will play a vital role in helping our prospects reach their full potential,” said Nashville Predators President of Hockey Operations/General Manager David Poile. “Scott was a player who had to work hard for everything in his career, and he will bring energy, enthusiasm and work ethic to this job. As a newly retired player he also has the ability to relate to players at all levels and help in their development.”

Nichol appears thrilled to join the staff after his tenure out on the ice with the team, adding: “During the last few years of my playing career, working with the younger players was something I really got a lot of enjoyment out of. It’s a great opportunity for me and I’m excited to be a part of the Predators organization again and have the chance to work with David Poile and the Predators staff.”

Martin Gelinas had vacated position to take an assistant coaching role with the Calgary Flames,

Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports

Whether or not the Nashville Predators end up trading Shea Weber is something we’ll have to wait until July to see, but you can bet that there will be plenty of rumors swirling around the star d-man and the 13 years remaining on his contract. If the Preds do end up dealing him, though, do they have a plan in place?

The Predators lost Ryan Suter to free agency last summer. If they trade Weber, they’ll have rid themselves of two no. 1 d-man in barely one calendar year. Obviously there’s an argument there in favor of keeping Weber, but if they do end up trying to improve the quality of their club overall, do they have someone on the roster who can step up into his role as a no. 1 defenseman?

As disappointing a season as it was for the Predators overall, they did have one player establish himself as a top pairing defenseman. Roman Josi was able to take on an increased role and thrive next to Shea Weber. He finished the season with 18 points from the blue line, a total which ranked sixth on the team.

More importantly, Josi proved capable of logging heavy minutes. He averaged over 23:30 of time on ice per game, three minutes more than anyone else not named Shea Weber. He was valuable on the power play, playing almost three minutes with the man advantage, but did not see as much time while on the penalty kill.

Next year should see more of the same for him. H’e emerged as a key piece of this team, though there’s the matter of him being a restricted free agent and needing a new contract. The question is whether or not he’d be able to step into a no. 1 defenseman role in the event that Weber ends up traded.

If there’s a knock on Josi, it’s that he needs to add some more meat to his 6’2″ frame, something that can easily be taken care of. If he does that, the Predators have the total package on their top pairing. Whether or not the Preds see him a guy capable of taking over Weber’s minutes in the event of a trade remains to be seen.

Rob Grabowski-USA TODAY Sports

One of the biggest storylines last summer was the status of Shea Weber as a restricted free agent and whether or not the Nashville Predators would pony up the dough in order to retain him. It took a massive offer sheet from the Philadelphia Flyers, but they eventually chose to keep him around.

In the less than one calendar year, the Predators have forked over nearly $30 million to the All Star defenseman, but there’s still a long way to go. It didn’t do much good as the Preds missed the playoffs in a season that included a pretty disappointing performance from Weber.

Some of that was adjusting to playing without Ryan Suter. But after a miserable start, which included an uncharacteristic absence on the stat sheet, Weber did manage to pick up his play later on in the season. He’s still one of the best in the game, but was unfortunately stuck in a pretty poor team overall.

Part of the reason that this team experienced such a decline was not only the departure of Suter, but the fact that being hampered with the Weber contract inhibits their ability to make all of the necessary moves, playing in the market that they do. Which has prompted some trade speculation, similar to last year.

The Predators signed Weber for a reason. But that doesn’t mean that they wouldn’t trade him this summer if given the chance. He’ll be eligible for trade in late July, a year after the initial signing of his new contract. You can bet that teams will be calling to see what it might take to acquire him.

Whether or not the Preds will try and move him remains to be seen. They could take back quite a haul, and probably improve their club a great deal through a Weber trade. They could get top offensive talent back, while still having a potential no. 1 d-man in the likes of Roman Josi.

Trading him might be the right move for the franchise, both from a financial standpoint and for the quality of their roster overall. Whether or not that happens is something we’ll have to wait to see. When July rolls around, you can bet that the Weber rumors will heat up at least a bit.