Rumor : Preds' superstar on the way out?

The champagne as only started to warm up a bit following the Cup finals that rumors are already going wild. As you probably know already, the Vegas expansion draft changes everything for the NHL, as teams need to protect players from being picked by Vegas. It's a lot of tough choices for franchises who were building their roster with the long term in mind. The expansion disrupted a lot of these plans. 

This is probably the case with the Predators. After a heartbreaking loss in Nashville yesterday, the Preds are now in roster management mode. According to Renaud Lavoie, long time NHL insider and journalist for TVA Sport in Quebec, James Neal would be on the way out of Nashville. 

The comments were made in French, but bear with us. He says team insiders told him Neal had to be traded in order to save his value and not lose him for nothing to Vegas. Nashville has a lot of players to protect, such as Subban, Ellis, Forsberg and Johansen, so tough choices have to be made. Neal could be traded for a decent return, Lavoie mentioning a first round pick among others. It would make sense to move Neal, who still has one year left to his contract, a get a nice payday in return. 

Neal performed very well in this year's playoff and his value has to be very high these days. It would be a heart breaker for Nashville, but hockey is a tough business.