EDMONTON, AB – The Nashville Predators traded defenseman Mattias Ekholm and a 2024 sixth-round pick to the Edmonton Oilers for blue-liner Tyson Barrie, forward prospect Reid Schaefer, a 2023 first-round pick, and a 2024 fourth-round pick, the teams announced.
The 6-foot-4 Ekholm recorded 18 points in 57 games this season for the Predators, where he’s spent his entire 12-year career. He’s posted excellent underlying defensive numbers.
NASHVILLE, TN – Nashville Predators President of Hockey Operations/General Manager David Poile announced today the team has signed defenseman Mattias Ekholm to a four-year, $25 million contract that will keep him in Nashville through the 2025-26 season. The contract will begin in the 2022-23 season and carries an annual average value of $6.25 million.
“When you think about foundational pieces on our hockey team, Mattias Ekholm is certainly at the top of the list, and we couldn’t be happier to get this deal done with the start of the regular season upon us,” Poile said. “An alternate captain who leads both vocally and by example, Mattias brings stability and size to our defense corps and has embraced serving as a mentor to the younger players on our team. We have a group of young, right-shot defensemen that includes Alexandre Carrier, Philippe Myers, Dante Fabbro and Matt Benning who all have the opportunity to learn from and play with Mattias on the side opposite him, and we’re excited about the stability that will provide us on the blue line.”
NASHVILLE, TN – To this day, when Mattias Ekholm recalls his best memories in the game of hockey, he’s back in Sweden, a young boy on the ice with his friends, learning the game without a care in the world.
That first sensation of a pair of blades gliding along, the breeze in his face, the feel of the puck on his stick – there’s nothing like it.
That’s the feeling he wants all children to experience for the first time – especially those who may not have the same opportunities as others their age – and that vision is becoming reality in Nashville.
COPENHAGEN, DENMARK –
It’s a golden moment for the Nashville Swedes.
Filip Forsberg scored the winner in the shootout as Sweden defeated Switzerland by a 3-2 final in the Gold Medal Game at the 2018 IIHF World Championship. As a result, Forsberg, Viktor Arvidsson andMattias Ekholm collect their first World Championship gold medals of their careers, while Roman Josi and Kevin Fiala earn silver medals, the second time Josi has taken home silver.
Josi and Fiala assisted on Switzerland’s first goal of the contest, and Josi also added a helper on the second Swiss goal. Ekholm tallied an assist on Sweden’s first marker of the game before Forsberg scored in the shootout, and then Swedish netminder Anders Nilsson made one more save to send the Swedes flying off the bench.
Mattias Ekholm of the Nashville Predators was not born to be a defenseman. Instead he grew into the role, slowly but surely becoming an elite player at the position at the highest level.
“It’s funny to look back to it how well it turned out,” Ekholm said earlier during the 2017 Stanley Cup Playoffs.
NASHVILLE — “I have worn his underwear,” Mattias Ekholm was saying after practice. “They are comfy.”
It used to take big meatballs to be a Swede in the National Hockey League, in the days when Fred Stanfield chugged up and down the wing among the NHL’s Original 12. “The more barbaric, archaic times of hockey,” as Anaheim Ducks head coach Randy Carlyle said Wednesday.
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