Nicolas Hague’s first season in Nashville never really got rolling, but the Predators are heading into training camp with a much more encouraging outlook on the former Golden Knights defenseman.
After an injury-filled 2025-26 campaign, Hague is reportedly set to be healthy when camp opens, giving him a chance to reset in year two of the four-year, $22 million deal he signed after arriving from Vegas. Predators general manager Chris MacFarland said Tuesday that the team expects everyone to be healthy when camp begins, Hague included.
That’s a meaningful update for Nashville. Hague was limited to 15 points in 62 games last season and missed time three different times, including the final six games because of an upper-body injury. For a player the Predators clearly viewed as part of their long-term plan, it was a frustrating opening act.
Hague’s move out of Vegas was one of the Golden Knights’ bigger salary-cap decisions last offseason. On June 30, 2025, Vegas sent the 2017 second-round pick to Nashville and got defenseman Jeremy Lauzon and center Colton Sissons back in the deal. Hague then landed his new contract with the Predators, which carries a $5.5 million annual cap hit.
Before that, he had spent six seasons in the NHL with the Golden Knights, playing 364 regular-season games and helping anchor the blue line during their Stanley Cup run in 2023.
Now, after a rough first year away from Vegas, Nashville will be hoping Hague can finally give them the version of himself that made him such a notable draft pick in the first place.
In Other News...
Golden Knights Fans Have An Easy New Way To Chase Free Tickets
Library Card Sign-Up Month is turning into an easy little bonus for local sports fans, with the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District offering cardholders a chance to win tickets to Golden Knights and Raiders home games. The promotion is open to both new and existing library cardholders through Sept. 30, giving residents another reason to check out a library card beyond the usual books, programs and resources.
Winners will be chosen randomly in October, and the giveaway adds a bit of local flavor to a month that already serves as a reminder of how much the library district is tied into the community. For Golden Knights fans, it is also a timely nudge as attention keeps building around the teams future schedule, including the preseason slate already on the calendar for 2026-27. [Read more 🡒]
Golden Knights Face One Big Prospect Question They Cant Ignore
Trevor Connelly now sits at the top of the Golden Knights prospect pile after the team moved Pavel Dorofeyev to the Rangers, a reminder of just how thin the pipeline has become. In Scott Wheelers The Athletic Top 145 NHL Prospects list, Connelly checked in as a Support player, which still gives Vegas a young name to point to even as the organization continues leaning hard on trades to keep its roster competitive now.
The bigger issue is what happens next, because the Golden Knights have already dealt away several recent first-round picks in their push to load up at the NHL level. That approach has worked in the short term, but it also leaves the franchise with fewer premium prospects and a narrower margin for error if the roster starts to age or the current contender window shifts. [Read more 🡒]
Sapovaliv Faces A Bigger Henderson Role Than Ever Before
Matyas Sapovaliv has already built a reputation as a smart offensive player, with the kind of production he showed in the OHL still standing out as a reminder of what he can do when things click. The challenge has been carrying that same touch into three seasons with the Henderson Silver Knights, where the scoring has not followed at the same pace. Even so, his playmaking and maturity remain real selling points, and those traits have kept him in the conversation as a player who can still grow into a larger role.
With roster changes expected around Henderson, the timing gives Sapovaliv a chance to take on more responsibility than ever before. The path forward is less about reinventing his game than finding a way to turn his strengths into more offense at the AHL level, where every shift matters and secondary contributions can add up quickly. If he can translate more of that offensive instinct into production, it would give the Silver Knights another useful piece as they adjust to what comes next. [Read more 🡒]