Nashville, in the wake of Mike Fisher’s Achilles tendon injury, needed another center with a top-six skillset. Enter Ribeiro for, essentially, as little money and term as he could expect. The 34-year-old had 47 points (16G, 31A) in his only season with the Phoenix Coyotes. He was bought of his four-year, $22 million contract the day of the draft for disciplinary reasons.
That counts for something, but for whatever it’s worth, Predators GM David Poile thinks the risk outweighs the reward.
“We have done our due diligence and believe Mike has a lot to offer to our team,” Poile said in a released statement.
In a vacuum, he’s right. Ribeiro, more than any center currently on Nashville’s roster, fits alongside winger James Neal, acquired from Pittsburgh on the same day Ribeiro took his buyout. Ribeiro also can help on the power play; in 48 games in 2013 with the Capitals, he had 49 points, and 24 came with the man advantage. That was a major reason the Coyotes signed him in the first place.
Coincidentally, Ribeiro’s power-play productivity dipped with Phoenix, from 9.21 to 3.15 points/60. If he can improve on that, continue driving play in the minutes he’s given, help Neal produce and stay out of trouble, he’ll be a steal.
If he can’t, he’ll be gone at virtually no cost, and in any case will be a half-decent stopgap while the Predators look for an actual long-term answer at the position. That sounds smarter than trading for Vincent Lecavalier, doesn’t it?
UPDATE: The same principle, minus Ribeiro’s personal problems, applies to Derek Roy, who signed with Nashville a little after Ribeiro. Roy, 31, wasn’t overly productive last season with St. Louis, putting up 37 points (9G, 28A), but he had decent possession numbers and in the not-too-distant point was a 60-point player in Buffalo.
The end result for Nashville: Ribeiro, Olli Jokinen, Roy and Paul Gaustad down the middle right now, with Fisher potentially down the road. That’s not bad.
