from Damien Cox of the Toronto Star,

He’s been running the Preds for 15 years, but you do get the sense the team is at a crossroads.

“We’ve been going an okay job,” said Poile. “But okay is not good enough.”

Laviolette will be expected to make a team that was shutout nine times last season and held to one goal another 16 times into a more dangerous offensive team.

Help in that area could have come in last year’s draft but the Preds were surprised when Nathan MacKinnon, Alexander Barkov and Jonathan Drouin went with the first three picks. That left defenceman Seth Jones for Nashville, not a bad construing prize, but not the flashy offensive help the club was hoping to get.

“We clearly have to find a way to be more dynamic offensively,” said Poile.

Weber’s 23 goals and 33 assists made him the third-leading scorer among all NHL defencemen this season, another reason why he’s invaluable to the Predators.

Obviously, there’s a temptation to move him for several pieces that might spread out the burden on the Nashville roster. But Poile knows from experience — he declined to match Scott Stevens’ four-year, $5.145 million offer sheet from St. Louis in 1989 while running the Washington Capitals — that when you have that kind of blue-line stud, you pay him and you keep him.

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