The Nashville Predators didn’t just add Mavrik Bourque this offseason - they locked him in.
A few days after landing the 24-year-old forward in a trade with the Dallas Stars, Nashville followed that move with a six-year extension reportedly carrying a $5.5 million annual cap hit. For a team trying to climb back into the playoff mix, it’s the kind of transaction that says plenty about where the front office wants to go: younger, deeper, and a lot more flexible up front.
Bourque arrives after his best NHL season to date. He put up 20 goals and 21 assists for 41 points in 82 games, good for a 0.50 points-per-game pace.
Over his career, he has 31 goals and 35 assists for 66 points in 156 games, which works out to 0.42 points per game. Nashville is betting on that upward trend continuing.
At 24, Bourque gives the Predators a player with room to grow, and the early expectation is that he’ll begin in the bottom six. That said, there’s a clear path for him to push higher in the lineup by the end of the 2026-27 season if his game keeps trending the right way.
What makes Bourque appealing is the blend. He’s described as a solid two-way forward, and that kind of profile matters for a team trying to stabilize its depth chart.
He works at both ends, brings effort, and still has room to add more offense. If that part of his game keeps expanding, Nashville could end up with one of the better-value contracts around.
There’s also a real sense that the Predators are getting more than what’s already on the surface. Bourque has positives across the board, and the belief here is that another level is still in there. Nashville managed to get him in a trade and then extend him long term at what looks like a reasonable price, which is exactly the sort of business a new management group wants to be known for.
The concerns are limited. Bourque could stand to be a little more confident offensively, and there’s still work to do when it comes to playing with more physicality when needed. But in a market where young players are getting pricier by the day, especially with recent offer sheet drama pushing values up, this is about as clean an extension as the Predators could have hoped for.
There’s always some risk when a player changes systems or coaches, but Bourque doesn’t sound like the kind of player who should cause alarm. He competes, he plays hard, and he has the tools to develop into a strong second-line center for a long time, even once Nashville gets back into contention.
In Other News...
Stars Were Reportedly Closer Than Anyone Knew To A Blockbuster Defense Upgrade
The Stars spent at least part of the offseason in the thick of a much bigger conversation than most fans realized, with Sportsnets Elliotte Friedman reporting that a verbal agreement had been reached on a deal that would have brought Zach Werenski to Dallas. It is the kind of swing that tells you how aggressively the Stars were looking to upgrade the blue line, and how seriously another club was willing to listen before the talks started to get complicated.
What ultimately kept the move from becoming real was Werenskis preference for an Eastern Conference destination, which left Dallas on the outside of a deal that had apparently gotten much farther than expected. The reported framework also involved more than one piece going back to Columbus, underscoring just how close the Stars came to reshaping their defense in a major way before the whole thing slipped away. [Read more 🡒]