After months of speculation, Matt Duchene has finally announced where he will be playing hockey for the foreseeable future. The team lucky enough to secure his services are the Nashville Predators led by Peter Laviolette.
The Predators made headlines on the second day of the draft when they traded star defenceman P.K. Subban in a trade that really did not do a lot to improve Nashville’s current roster or their prospect pool. The trade was entirely cap motivated, meaning that Subban was traded in order to save some cap space.
Duchene ultimately signed for seven years at $8 million per season. The value of the deal looks great for the Predators when you look at how earlier in the season he was believed to be asking for over $9 million per season on a new deal.
Duchene was traded to the Columbus Blue Jackets at the NHL trade deadline back in February as the Blue Jackets worked hard in all aspects to make a deep run into the postseason en route to the cup. Along with Duchene, the Blue Jackets also lost starting goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky, star winger Artemi Panarin, backup goaltender Keith Kinkaid and will likely lose Ryan Dzingel as well.
Having split the season between the Ottawa Senators and Columbus Blue Jackets, Duchene recorded 70 points in a total of 73 games played. the 28-year-old center has scored a career 547 points in a total of 727 games played.
Duchene will look to lead Nashville to their first Stanley Cup in the place of Subban, even after their crushing defeat to the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2017.