Predators still open to moving Stamkos, Marchessault despite recent success
The Nashville Predators find themselves in a somewhat unexpected position at the midway mark of the 2025-26 NHL season. They’re good.
After finishing 2024-25 second last in the Central Division, they find themselves sitting fourth after 41 games, with 13 wins in their previous 19 contests heading into Tuesday night’s clash against the Edmonton Oilers.
In the run, Steven Stamkos and Jonathan Marchessault have been two of the organization’s most significant bounceback players with 28 and 13 points, respectively. Yet, they might not be around for long.
On Monday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, Tyler Yaremchuk and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton were joined by The Fourth Period‘s David Pagnotta to discuss where the two veterans stand in Nashville’s future.
Tyler Yaremchuk: Earlier in the season, everything was going terribly for Nashville. It wasn’t going particularly well for Steven Stamkos either. Now, he’s on pace for 36 goals all of a sudden, and that’s got to have some teams perking their ears up a little bit.
David Pagnotta: With how well he’s playing. It’s a bit more salivating for teams that are trying to get him out of Nashville. There has been interest, and they’ve explored that with the Predators. Every team, to my understanding, that has had interest in Stamkos, to varying degrees, has wanted Nashville to retain and or at least is curious as to how much the Predators are willing to retain, and they haven’t been.
That was the message a couple of months ago; it’s the same message now: Nashville says that if you want us to really retain that $8 million AAV, you’ve got to pay up quite significantly to do it. So the appetite is not necessarily there to a full degree, but maybe they can. Maybe a team can convince the Predators to lower that cap hit if they give enough to incentivize them to do so.
He’s been rolling, and the Predators have done better. This is a team that still understands where they’re at and is open to that possibility of not just him, but also Jonathan Marchessault, so I think both of those guys are willing to go to top-tier contenders. It just depends on the environment. So they’re open to it, but they haven’t given a list or anything like that.
This is more going to be on a situational basis. If the Predators feel that they’ve got a deal for either of those guys that they’re comfortable accepting, then they’ll go to the player and say as ask what they think, but until we get to that point, and until the finances work, don’t be surprised, Stamkos and Marchessault.
You can catch the full segment and the rest of Monday’s episode here…