There was a seismic shift in the executive suite of the Bridgestone Arena last season. The only president and general manager the Nashville Predators have known in their 25-year history, David Poile, is retiring, making way for organizational legend Barry Trotz.

With a prospect pool already established among the better half of the league last season, Poile left the organization with some solid building blocks for the future. Headlined by one of the best goalie prospects in the sport, Yaroslav Askarov, with several quality prospects not far behind, there was already a budding potential core in the wings.

To top it off, young NHL players Philip Tomasino, Juuso Pärssinen, Cody Glass, and Tommy Novak are already showing their mettle at the NHL level. 

The work isn't quite done, though. The Predators took a chisel to this roster and disassembled their good-not-great team one win-now piece at a time, parting with Tanner Jeannot, Mattias Ekholm, and Mikael Granlund ahead of last deadline, ultimately yielding enough draft picks to give them the most of any team in the 2023 NHL Draft.

With their full-to-overflowing war chest of futures, Trotz issued one mandate to his amateur scouting department in a press conference that preceded that draft.

“Take some high-end swings on some guys. I can find you third-line, fourth-line guys, no problem. Go get me some guys that get people out of their seats. ”

After some manoeuvring at the draft table, the Predators’ scouting staff went to work and selected 11 players, eight of them being in the first 125 selections.

This was like a shot of pure adrenaline to an already strong prospect pool, one that is not only deep but talented at every position, with legitimate high-upside contributors at the top of the order.

It’s rebuild season in Trotz’s new world, and we live in it.