The Predators traded a few fan favorites on both the NHL and AHL levels today right at the NHL deadline.
Martin Erat ended up waiving his no trade clause and is headed to the Capitals along with Michael Latta. The Preds get hot shot prospect Filip Forsberg in exchange.
Latta ranks second on the Admirals in points with 34 and first in assists with 26 among active players this season.
In 122 career games as an Admiral, Latta scored 23 goals picked up 41 assists and compiled 286 penalty minutes.
During his time in Milwaukee, Latta endeared himself to Admirals fans with his knack for dropping the gloves to stand up for his team.
The 18-year old Forsberg was Washington’s 11th pick in the first round of the 2012 NHL draft.
So Roundtable, how shocked are you by the move? Do you think it’s the right move for Nashville? On the flip side, how excited are you to get Forsberg? What’s your favorite Latta memory?
Admirals Roundtable 
While his ability to drop the gloves may have endeared him to the crowd, his friendly personality endeared him to individual fans. He always had a wave and a smile at the ready.
On ice he could be counted on to aggravate his opponents with his physical play.
That’s my $0.02.
Latta will surely be missed. He brought a tough guy attitude with the abilty to score. I never have been a fan of Erat (not really a fan of the preds the way it is) but he seems to be a quick fix for the Caps to perhaps jump start them to a playoff spot. I don’t really know what to think of forsberg. I have this feeling of Radulov about him, I don’t see him spending much if any time here in MKE one of those straight to nashville kinda guys. The Bears get Latta preds get forsberg caps get erat and again we are left holding the bag of air. Oh well that’s AHL life I guess.
rumor has it Mueller was brought back up to Nashville last night,
Definitely bummed about losing Latta. I feel bad he never got a shot with the Predators. He seemed like a great teammate and judging by the outpouring of love from the Ads staff and his teammates on Twitter, he will be sorely missed. Was surprised by the trade for sure.
Piggybacking on what Tony said-can someone here explain what is going on with the new rule this year regarding call-ups for the AHL playoffs? Is that why Mueller was reassigned in the AM and then called right back up 24 hours later? What does that mean for players like Beck, Blum, Bourque? Even though they have a 2 way, are they not allowed to play for us for the rest of the year? Confused.
I was surprised by the trade, but am happy with all of it. It is never fun to lose a beloved player, but I’m hoping the future is brighter for it. I believe I read somewhere that the Preds have 10 draft picks this year. I think it’s becoming more apparent that they are planning on going through a rebuilding process near-term (maybe Era realized that was coming and didn’t want to be part of it). So the next couple years probaby won’t be fun, but hopefully it makes the future better. Almost every team goes through it. This can only help the Ads as well, so stay tuned…
Griffin, I believe what you said is correct. With no clear-day roster, the new rule is a player must be on an AHL roster before the NHL trade deadline in order to be eligible to play in the AHL. If you check the AHL transactions you’ll see Beck, Bartley, and Mueller were sent down and recalled so those guys would be eligible to return!
O, excellent! I had not seen it anywhere on Twitter that Beck and Bartley were “sent down” in addition to Mueller. Thank you Creed!
I just found out about Latta 2 hours ago. My favorite memory of him is when he fought Shawn LaLonde of the Rockford “Peaches”. (They still show that fight on the video board highlights!). They were sent to the penalty box. During the timeout which followed, Rob Flick attacked Jeremy Smith. Then the entire Milwaukee bench emptied except for the back-up goalie and the coaches. It was April 1, 2012. Both Latta and LaLonde came out of their penaties boxes. I don’t remember who Latta was fighting, but he lost his jersey. He was skating around in his shoulder pads looking for another IceHog to fight, but most of them were standing around and laughing about the turn of events at the game. Sorry to see you go Mike!
Losing Erat is probably an addition by subtraction. I hope this Forsberg will be better than the last one that the Preds had. I still call him “Floppa”. Broken foot and washed up, what a bust he was!