{"id":773839,"date":"2026-07-01T18:38:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-01T18:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/773839\/"},"modified":"2026-07-01T18:38:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T18:38:10","slug":"predators-to-acquire-mavrik-bourque-pro-hockey-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/773839\/","title":{"rendered":"Predators To Acquire Mavrik Bourque \u2013 Pro Hockey Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

While July 1st is generally all about unrestricted free agents, restricted free agency begins as well.\u00a0 Although offer sheets are few and far between, sometimes the threat of one could be enough to spur movement.\u00a0 That appears to be the case with Stars forward Mavrik Bourque<\/a> as they have dealt him and\u00a0defenseman Ilya Lyubushkin<\/a> to Nashville in exchange for Nashville\u2019s 2027 second-round pick and Vegas\u2019 2028 third-rounder.\u00a0 Both teams have announced the swap.<\/p>\n

Bourque is coming off his best NHL season so far.\u00a0 The 24-year-old played in 82 games last season in his sophomore year, putting up 20 goals and 21 assists.\u00a0 He did so playing on a very team-friendly contract.\u00a0 Dallas had Bourque playing on a one-year, $950K bridge deal, one that afforded them more cap flexibility to try to make a run last season while giving the youngster more leverage in his next contract.<\/p>\n

That leverage is certainly now in play.\u00a0 While the Stars would have undoubtedly liked to keep him in the fold, they also have Jason Robertson<\/a> that they\u2019re hoping to re-sign or find a suitable trade for; efforts on both fronts have failed to materialize in recent days.\u00a0 But with Robertson seeking more than $12MM per season on a long-term deal and Dallas only having $9.2MM in cap room before the swap per PuckPedia<\/a>, it feels like the Stars were going to have their hand forced one way or the other.<\/p>\n

Rather than risk the offer sheet, they\u2019ve gotten out in front of it with this trade.\u00a0 A pair of second-round picks could have been higher than a potential offer sheet return had Bourque signed an offer sheet in the $4.75MM range, the upper end of the second-round pick compensation threshold<\/a>.\u00a0 The move also allows them to clear the final season of Lyubushkin\u2019s deal off their books, allowing them to open up another $3.25MM in cap room.<\/p>\n

Bourque is the latest addition of note from new GM Chris MacFarland, who has acted quickly to reshape the roster after coming over from Colorado.\u00a0 He should be able to give the Predators a boost to their secondary scoring, especially important for a team that finished 20th in goals scored last season.\u00a0 Bourque should slot into a top-six role, depending on what other moves that MacFarland has in store.\u00a0 Contract talks are underway between the two sides, reports Chris Johnston of TSN and The Athletic (Twitter link<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Lyubushkin, meanwhile, is likely to slot in on the third pairing, a role he has held for the bulk of his career.\u00a0 The 32-year-old played in 53 games last season, notching one goal and eight assists along with 90 blocked shots and 68 hits.\u00a0 For his career, he has 70 points in 486 games between five different organizations.<\/p>\n

With this swap, the Preds now have a little over $14MM in cap room, per PuckPedia<\/a>, with Bourque and defenseman Justin Barron<\/a> being their restricted free agents of note.<\/p>\n

Sportsnet\u2019s Elliotte Friedman was the first to report<\/a> the trade.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While July 1st is generally all about unrestricted free agents, restricted free agency begins as well.\u00a0 Although offer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":773840,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[49,48,757,241263,760,4247,82,4584],"class_list":["post-773839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-dallas-stars","tag-mavrik-bourque","tag-nashville-predators","tag-newsstand","tag-sports","tag-transactions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=773839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773839\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/773840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=773839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=773839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=773839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}