How the Nashville Predators Were Built: Final 2025-26 Roster Edition

There are three ways that a NHL roster can add players, through the draft, free agency or trades. The Predators have been building through one of those facets:

Dec 6, 2025; Raleigh, North Carolina, USA; Nashville Predators center Fedor Svechkov takes a shot at the Carolina Hurricanes during the second period at Lenovo Center. / James Guillory-Imagn Images

When it comes to National Hockey League teams, homegrown doesn't necessarily mean players who grew up in the area, which for the Nashville Predators is a good thing as youth programs continue to grow in the area. Instead, it's another way to describe a player who was drafted and developed by the franchise.

Every team, especially in the smaller markets, would like to be known for its homegrown talent to the point that it has excess prospects who have trouble making the team (who with aging veterans can then be turned into more draft picks and prospects, keeping the cycle going over years and decades)

However, this wasn't the Predators, at least not at the start of the 2025-26 season.

On opening week, it had 10 former NHL draft picks on its roster, which was a little above average (the league range was from five to 13), however only three had been first-round picks by the Predators. The initial roster had just seven players who had been drafted by Nashville overall.  Meanwhile, the average age on the team was 28.5 as well, which was middle of the pack by league standards.

But things have been changing for the better in that respect, as Nashville has been making the transition to again being known as a talent-laden franchise from top to bottom.

As the 2025-26 season concluded, the Predators had 11 players it had drafted on its roster, including four of its own first-round selections. Nashville also had others looking to crack the roster at the start of 2026-27 season, so both of those numbers are on pace to continue rising.

In general, about one-third of all NHL players are still with the team that selected them in the NHL Draft. Nowadays a lot of teams are built through trades, although obviously some of the bigger-market teams rely more on free agency.

However, the salary cap comes into play as well. The teams with the smallest cap space for next season shouldn’t surprise anyone, Colorado and Vegas. Meanwhile, Nashville will have nearly $30 million in cap space, with a lot of young talent rising, and shrinking dead cap hits — money committed to players no longer on the roster.

Nashville is still on the hook for Matt Duchene, although his buyout goes from counting $6.6 million against the Predators’ salary cap in 2025-26 to just $1.6 million for the subsequent final three years. Nashville also still has three more seasons of Kyle Turris counting $2 million per year.

This past season those two contracts took up nearly 10 percent of Nashville’s cap space (9.0 to be precise, but Mattias Ekholm and Colton Sissons counted 1.7 percent as well). In short, the Predators will go from having $10.23 million dead space to $3.56 million, which obviously is much more manageable.

As Nashville aims to bring in a new general manger, here's what he'll be inheriting in terms of how the roster has been built, heading into the 2026 NHL Draft in late June, and then free agency:

Trades (7)

Justus Annunen, G: Traded to Nashville by Colorado with a 6th-round pick (later traded to Utah) in the 2025 NHL Draft for Scott Wedgewood, Nov. 30, 2024.

Justin Barron, D: Traded to Nashville by Montreal for Alexandre Carrier, Dec. 18, 2024.

Nicolas Hague, D: Traded to Nashville by Vegas for Colton Sissons, Jeremy Lauzon and a third-round pick in the 2027 NHL Draft, June 30, 2025.

Filip Forsberg, LW: Traded to Nashville by Washington for Martin Erat and Michael Latta, April 3, 2013.

Erik Haula, LW: Traded to Nashville by New Jersey for Jeremy Hanzel and a 4th-round pick in the 2025 NHL Draft (Trenten Bennett), June 18, 2025.

Reid Schaefer, LW: Traded to Nashville by Edmonton with Tyson Barrie, a first-round pick in the 2023 NHL Draft (Tanner Molendyk) and fourth-round pick in 2024 (later traded to Tampa Bay) for Mattias Ekholm and a sixth-round pick in 2024 (Albin Sundin), February 28, 2023.

Ozzy Wiesblatt, RW: Traded to Nashville by San Jose for Egor Afanasyev, June 23, 2024.

Free Agents (7)

Kevin Gravel, D: Signed as a free agent, July 14, 2022.

Tyson Jost C: Claimed off waivers from Carolina, Oct. 1, 2025.

Jonathan Marchessault, C: Signed as a free agent, July 1, 2024.

Ryan O'Reilly, C: Signed as a free agent, July 1, 2023.

Nick Perbix, D: Signed as a free agent, July 1, 2025.

Brady Skjei, D: Signed as a free agent, July 1, 2024

Steven Stamkos, C: Signed as a free agent by Nashville, July 1, 2024.

NHL Draft (11)

Luke Evangelista, RW: Selected 42nd overall, second round 2020 draft.

Aiden Fink, RW: Selected 218th overall, seventh round 2023 draft.

Roman Josi, D: Selected 38th overall, second round 2008 draft.

Joakim Kemell, RW: Selected 17th overall, first round, 2022 draft   

Zachary L'Heureux, LW: Selected 27th overall, first round 2021 draft

Cole O'Hara, RW: Selected 114th overall, fourth round, 2022 draft

Juuse Saros, G: Selected 99th overall, fourth round 2013 draft

Fedor Svechkov, C: Selected 19th overall, first round 2021 draft.

Ryan Ufko, D: Selected 115th overall, fourth round 2021 draft.       

Adam Wilsby, D: Selected 101st overall, fourth round 2020 draft.  

Matthew Wood, RW: Selected 15th overall, first round 2023 draft.

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