With Saros being 28 and having [Askarov](https://www.eliteprospects.com/player/552036/yaroslav-askarov) *(who has been struggling recently)* coming down the line, how comfortable are the fans with potentially shipping off Saros at the deadline this season?
*When you compare and average out the past trades of goalies in the NHL and do an analysis, the most likely return would be this:*
* **One or possibly two first-round picks**
* **One second-round pick**.
* **Possibly a third-round pick**.
* **At least one high-quality prospect**.
* **One established NHL player (for salary reasons or as a throw in)**
​
by Apprehensive_Ad4572
9 Comments
NO GOALS
The only reason Saros leaves is because that is what he wants. We have depth picks and cap space. Getting rid of juice requires top 10s.
From some random article I just found-
Saros has put up some sharp performances over the last month — he’s 11-2-0 in 13 starts between Nov. 20 and Dec. 21. He’s allowed just 20 goals in those 11 wins but nine in the two losses. Saros’ 2.81 GAA and .909 save percentage are both 16th in the NHL among goalies with at least 14 starts. Those numbers aren’t exactly elite, but his 15 wins puts him in a three-way tie with Connor Hellebuyck and Alexandar Georgiev for second overall in the league. And Saros’ 677 saves are tops in the NHL.
The 9 goals allowed in 2 losses vs 20goals in 11 wins is huge and skews how well he is playing.
From [Dan Rosen](https://www.nhl.com/news/nhl-fan-mailbag-for-december-20):
“Trotz’s plan and his process is built around the core in Nashville and the young players on the rise. He never said they were going into a full rebuild. In fact, Trotz was adamant that the Predators do not need to do that, especially with a Vezina Trophy-caliber goalie (Juuse Saros), a Norris Trophy-caliber defenseman (captain Roman Josi) and an elite goal-scorer (Filip Forsberg). He said the team, its fans, the market, no one wanted that. There were ways to win while still developing talent.”
Last year, I would’ve agreed, but there’s a new game in town. You don’t trade one of your core players.
I feel like this question comes up at least once every other week.
It’s amazing to me that people think the Preds are going to gift wrap Askarov the starting job just because of where he was drafted in the 1st round.
Just stop already. The horse is dead. Saros isn’t getting traded.
If we were tanking and bottom of the conference then yeah they’d probably do it. But were surprisingly competitive this year and look a lot closer to actually being consistently good. Moving Saros would represent giving up on not just this year, but resetting the entire franchise timeline.
No
Here is how I think it is going to go. Askarov will be Saros’s backup next year.
If Askarov earns the #1 job, we will trade Saros. If he doesn’t we resign Saros.
IF we trade were to trade Saros, he is going to bring back a f*ck ton in return. The problem is that Saros is so good that any draft picks will be at the end of the first round. So we are going to want to trade him for LEGIT prospects instead of picks.
I think that the reality is that we are not going to trade Saros because I don’t think the owners would be willing to see us go into the tank for a while. The team would lose money, and I don’t think team ownership has an appetite for that. We could not trade Saros until we had his replacement ready to go.
If we had to trade him, I would love to trade him to a team like Buffalo that has a ton of really good prospects who will soon be NHL ready and possibly even Levi as part of the return giving us an alternative to Askarov as well. I would take Levi, Benson, Kulich, Rosen and Savoy for Saros. But it would take an offer like that. Saros would make Buffalo a contender right away.