The Predators have activated defenseman Spencer Stastney off the non-roster list and assigned him to AHL Milwaukee, Alex Daugherty of the Tennessean relays.
Stastney, 24, has been on personal leave for over two months. Nashville never issued an update on his status aside from head coach Andrew Brunette saying he’d be out indefinitely at the beginning of training camp.
If he was available, Stastney likely would have logged a fair amount of NHL action for the Predators this season already. The 2018 fifth-round pick played a career-high 20 games last season, recording four points with a +9 rating while averaging 15:59 per game. He also appeared in the first three games of Nashville’s first-round loss to the Canucks before sustaining an upper-body injury.
An Illinois native, Stastney logged reasonably strong possession numbers in relatively even offensive zone and defensive zone usage. His 51.9 CF% and 59.3 xGF% marks at even strength means he had an overall positive impact on Nashville’s possession quality in limited minutes.
Those numbers would be a major improvement on what the Predators’ depth corps of Alexandre Carrier, Marc Del Gaizo, Jeremy Lauzon, and Luke Schenn have given them this season. With Lauzon now out week-to-week after sustaining a lower-body injury against the Devils on Monday, expect the waiver-exempt Stastney to be recalled sooner rather than later after he’s able to get his feet back under him in Milwaukee.
Stastney was a restricted free agent last summer and took Nashville to arbitration, where he was awarded a two-year, partial two-way contract worth $825K per season in the NHL. Now that he’s been assigned to the minors, his pro-rated paycheck will be a reduced $400K for the time being. Stastney carried a roughly $253K cap hit while on season-opening injured reserve that is now off the Preds’ books.
Will we ever know what happened with Mr. Stastney?