4 Offseason Trade Landing Spots for Predators Goalie Juuse Saros

There is a real possibility that Friday night was the final home game for Juuse Saros as a member of the Nashville Predators.

The Predators had their 2023-24 season come to an end after a 1-0 Game 6 loss to the Vancouver Canucks in the Music City.

He is set to enter the final year of his current contract and his name has surfaced in trade rumors and speculation for more than a year, and the Predators have one of the top goalie prospects in the league getting closer to making his debut in Yaroslav Askarov. All of those factors combined point to the possibility of a trade happening this offseason.

If the Predators decided to move in that direction there would be no shortage of teams that would no doubt have interest in landing a goalie that has been one of the league's best over the past few years.

Let's take a look at a few of those potential teams.

The Devils will be at the top of any potential goalie list given how the 2023-24 season went.

The entire season was a failure and disappointment, and goaltending was one of the biggest culprits in producing that result.

New Jersey was willing to enter the season with Vitek Vanecek and Akira Schmid as its goaltending duo despite a significant amount of salary-cap space and young assets to deal with to try and fix it. Management refused and did nothing as the season slowly slipped away.

It was not until trade deadline day that the Devils decided to make changes, and by that point, it was way too little, too late.

Overall the Devils finished the regular season with 30th ranked all situations save percentage in the NHL, ahead of only Philadelphia and Ottawa. That isn't good enough. Jake Allen, one of the goalies they acquired at the deadline, remains under contract for next season at a reduced salary (less than $2 million) but he is hardly a difference-maker or sure thing as a starter that can help the Devils get back to the playoffs. If Saros is available, the Devils should be one of the first teams making the call to Nashville.

Even with their down year the Devils still have an impressive farm system to pull from as well as their full complement of first-round draft picks. They already have 14 players under contract for next season and still have over $19 million in salary-cap space. They could fit his contract in and have the required assets to make a strong offer.

A lot of this might depend entirely on how the Maple Leafs end up doing in the playoffs, but there could be a major need and fit here.

The Maple Leafs had goaltending questions all season, while Ilya Samsonov and Martin Jones are set to be unrestricted free agents after this season. They also had the second-lowest all-situations save percentage of any team in the playoffs this season, finishing ahead of only the Tampa Bay Lightning who had to deal with a less-than-100-percent Andrei Vasilevskiy for a significant portion of the season.

The salary cap would be a potential roadblock, but there are always ways around that.

Saros and Joseph Woll, who remains signed for the 2024-25 season at a very team-friendly rate of just $766,000 could make for an extraordinarily strong duo.

The Kings actually pieced together a pretty competent goaltending situation this season despite not having a clear No. 1 starter. They finished the regular season with the fourth-best all situations save percentage in the league, and exceeded all expectations at the position.

There are, however, a few problems here.

The first is that the pressure will be on the Kings to make a big move and take a big step forward after a third consecutive first-round exit.

The second is that all three NHL goalies who appeared in a game for the Kings this season (Cam Talbot, David Rittich, Pheonix Copley) are not only all over the age of 30, they are all pending unrestricted free agents this offseason.

That pressure to win, combined with the need for a starting goaltender, as well as the lack of quality options that could be available, could make the Kings a potential trade partner.

The Kings have more than $20 million in salary-cap space to work with this offseason, but only have 12 players under contract. They could fit Saros' contract in with little issue while they also have a pretty deep farm system (as well as their first-round pick in 2024) to deal from.

Saros is coming off the least productive season of his career since he became a full-time starter, posting only a .908 save percentage. Getting a chance to play behind a Kings team that is one of the best defending teams in the league could easily help him get back on track on an individual level while also giving the Kings a bonafide starter.

Speaking of being under pressure to win, general manager Steve Yzerman and the Detroit Red Wings will be feeling a lot of it.

They narrowly missed the playoffs for a seventh consecutive season, and it was not hard to understand why.

For as many goals as they scored and for as high-powered as their offense could be on some nights, they could not stop anybody from scoring against them. It was the perfect combination of a weak defensive team, with no defensive structure, all playing in front of goaltenders that couldn't secure the position.

They need to do a better job keeping the puck out of their net, both in terms of their defensive play and their goaltending.

The Red Wings finished the season with the 19th-ranked save percentage this past season and are 24th over the past two seasons combined. They tried to find a solution with Ville Husso in free agency two years ago, but it has not worked out. Alex Lyon and James Reimer were pretty average in Husso's absence as he dealt with injuries in the second half, but Reimer is set to be an unrestricted free agent this summer.

The Red Wings have some big restricted free agents to sign this offseason (including top forward Lucas Raymond and top defenseman Moritz Seider) but still have nearly $30 million in salary-cap space with already 13 players under contract. New contract extensions for Raymond and Seider will eat into a lot of that remaining salary-cap space, but if they are serious about making the playoffs for the first time since the 2015-16 season they will need a significant goalie upgrade. Saros would easily be that.