Are the Nashville Predators still in trade talks? Last week we ran an article that talked about rumors of a trade between Boston and the Predators from HockeyBuzz. The story was that the Bruins were looking for a defenseman and were offering some serious scoring in return.

Now there comes another rumor that matches up with that one from The Hockey Press at SportsBlog. It wouldn’t be so interesting except that it talks about the same defenseman and serious scoring but in a different way.

As the story goes, the writer has a trusted source who says that the Bruins want to sign Cody Franson to a Free Agent contract but don’t have the cap space to do so. Boston has been in most of the reports as a team that is interested in Franson. If the Bruins can free up some cap space, they can get the deal done for the free agent defenseman.

Hockey Press goes on to say that the Predators are talking seriously to the Bruins about right-wing Loui Eriksson. According the General Fanager, the Bruins have Eriksson signed for one more year at $4,250,000 and then he will be an unrestricted free agent. Supposedly the Predators and possibly Winnipeg are offering a minor forward and picks or prospects. The Predators according to General Fanager has $12.3 million available against the cap. They want to keep some room for next year to sign Filip Forsberg, Seth Jones and Mattias Ekholm who are all restricted free agents. This deal wouldn’t affect that if they decided not to keep the then 31-year-old Eriksson. Or they may have more money free if they decide not to bring back Paul Gaustad and Eric Nystrom which would free up another nearly $6 million.

Loui Eriksson scored 22 goals last year and has had four others that he scored at least 26, topped by his 36 back in 2008-09 with the Stars. If you only had to give up Calle Jarnkrok or Gabby Bourque who will both be Restricted Free Agents after this year and a middle round pick it sure seems like it would be worth it. Bourque and Jarnkrok are both on the books at under $900,000 this year so it would help the Bruins that way.

I believe that the Predators could easily find room for Eriksson on a wing on one of the top three lines. It would have a trickle-down effect on all the lines. Even if we only had him for one year, the window doesn’t stay open very long and we have a really solid team here in Nashville. It doesn’t take much to push a team to the next level when your level is already high.

We hear rumors all the time and don’t just throw them all out there. This one, because of duplication of the same exact scenario last week seemed to have legs. It always makes for interesting water cooler talk.