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Ryan S. ClarkMar 3, 2026, 11:28 PM ET<\/p>\n
Close<\/a>Ryan S. Clark is an NHL reporter for ESPN.<\/p>\n Multiple Authors<\/p>\n Cole Smith<\/a> was the second player the Nashville Predators<\/a> traded Tuesday with the winger being moved to the Vegas Golden Knights<\/a> in exchange for prospect defenseman Christoffer Sedoff and a 2028 third-round pick.<\/p>\n The Predators traded Smith hours after parting ways with center Michael McCarron<\/a> in a deal with the Minnesota Wild<\/a> in exchange for a 2028 second-round pick. The Preds now have five picks in the first three rounds in 2028.<\/p>\n Smith, 30, has scored six goals and 10 points over 41 games in a season that is seeing him average a career-high 14:27 in ice time. He’ll be a pending unrestricted free agent at the end of the season as he’s in the second year of a two-year contract worth $1 million annually.<\/p>\n Editor’s Picks It’s likely that the Golden Knights will use the Smith in a bottom-six role on the wing to bolster what they already have with Keegan Kolesar<\/a>, Brandon Saad<\/a> and Cole Reinhardt<\/a>. The Knights could use the depth, as the team has four forwards that are either day-to-day or on injured reserve.<\/p>\n Vegas (28-19-14) entered Tuesday atop the Pacific Division with a one-point lead over the Anaheim Ducks<\/a> while having a three-point edge on the Seattle Kraken<\/a>. The Edmonton Oilers<\/a> are four points behind the Golden Knights in the second and final Western Conference wild-card spot.<\/p>\n As for Nashville (27-26-8), it came into Tuesday on a three-game losing streak that put the club four points behind the Oilers.<\/p>\n The decision to move on from McCarron and Smith could be the first steps in a potentially active week with the NHL trade deadline set for Friday at 3 p.m. E.T.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ryan S. ClarkMar 3, 2026, 11:28 PM ET CloseRyan S. Clark is an NHL reporter for ESPN. Multiple…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":502846,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-502845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=502845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/502846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=502845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=502845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=502845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/r1105364_1296x1296_1-1.jpg&w=130&h=130&scale=crop&location=center.jpeg\")
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