from Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic,

In our conversations since the regular season ended, Predators general manager Barry Trotz routinely would mention that while he wouldn’t be spending gigantic dollars this offseason with his team in transition, he was hoping to address the culture piece of it.

He wasn’t kidding.

Enter Ryan O’Reilly and Luke Schenn, character and leadership oozing out of their pores.

“It was really important,” Trotz told The Athletic over the phone Sunday.

Important because as an organization, the Predators are going to continue to integrate their top picks and prospects between the NHL and AHL levels, and Trotz wanted to ensure those young players were exposed to veteran leadership that had the right impact.

Obviously captain Roman Josi is a big part of that, but adding ROR and Schenn was critical in that game plan, too.

“I needed some character people so that as these young players filter in, they had the backbone, the good leaders, the mentors, and good players that they could lean on and grow with,” Trotz said.

Ryan Johansen and Matt Duchene were valuable members of the Predators. They did a lot for the franchise.

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