{"id":551376,"date":"2026-04-12T21:24:50","date_gmt":"2026-04-12T21:24:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/551376\/"},"modified":"2026-04-12T21:24:50","modified_gmt":"2026-04-12T21:24:50","slug":"predators-reassign-jordan-oesterle-yardbarker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/551376\/","title":{"rendered":"Predators Reassign Jordan Oesterle | Yardbarker"},"content":{"rendered":"

April 12: This afternoon Nashville reassigned Oesterle to AHL Milwaukee, shared in a press release<\/a>. The veteran skated in one game, last Thursday at Utah, playing just over 14 minutes and finishing a -1. His Predators fell 4-1 as a significant blow to their playoff hopes. Oesterle was then scratched yesterday in the club\u2019s win over Minnesota, as they went with 22-year-old rookie righty Ryan Ufko instead.<\/p>\n

In all likelihood the Mammoth contest will be Oesterle\u2019s only NHL action of the 2025-26 campaign, a real shift after his tenure as a full-timer in the league from 2017-23. A free agent at season\u2019s end, and opportunities with the Predators clearly limited, he\u2019s presumably putting his final touches on his time with the organization this month.<\/p>\n

April 6: The Predators recalled veteran defenseman Jordan Oesterle\u00a0from the AHL\u2019s Milwaukee Admirals on Monday, per a team announcement<\/a>. He comes up to give Nashville a seventh healthy defenseman after lefty Nicolas Hague\u00a0left Saturday\u2019s 6-3 win over the Sharks with an undisclosed injury in the first period and did not return. As such, Hague is doubtful for tonight\u2019s contest against the Kings, although how much time he\u2019ll miss beyond that is unknown.<\/p>\n

Nashville acquired Oesterle off waivers from the Bruins at last season\u2019s trade deadline amid a rash of season-ending injuries to\u00a0Roman Josi,\u00a0Jeremy Lauzon, and\u00a0Adam Wilsby. The 33-year-old was a fine depth fill-in, posting three goals and an assist with a -3 rating in 15 games. Since he\u2019d signed a two-year, two-way deal with Boston the prior offseason, he remained under contract with the Preds heading into training camp. With Hague\u2019s acquisition from the Golden Knights and\u00a0Nicklaus Perbix\u2018s pickup in free agency, Oesterle was in a wide competition for a spot as the Preds\u2019 healthy extra but ultimately ended up on waivers midway through training camp.<\/p>\n

Unlike last season, Oesterle cleared. He\u2019s been in Milwaukee ever since, where the veteran of 408 NHL games leads the team with 46 points in 65 games. That includes an 11-point run in his last seven games.<\/p>\n

On the heels of that strong minor-league performance, he\u2019ll get a late-season reward for his play heading into free agency this summer. Nashville lost a high-quality depth option when they sent\u00a0Nick Blankenburg\u00a0to the Avalanche at the deadline, so it\u2019ll either be Oesterle or rookie\u00a0Ryan Ufko\u00a0entering the lineup for Hague tonight. If they want to keep their two-lefty top pair of Josi\u00a0and\u00a0Brady Skjei\u00a0together, it\u2019ll likely be Oesterle stepping in to ensure there\u2019s a left-shot option on the second and third pairings as well. Neither is a great stylistic fit to replace the imposing Hague.<\/p>\n

If Oesterle draws in, his first NHL game in nearly a calendar year couldn\u2019t come with higher stakes. Nashville\u2019s playoff hopes face a 40 percent swing depending on the result of tonight\u2019s game against Los Angeles. They currently sit in the second wild-card slot with a 34.6% chance of hanging onto it and securing an improbable playoff berth, but that number could rise to 55.6% with a regulation win and drop to just 17.2% with a regulation loss, per MoneyPuck<\/a>. The Preds and Kings both have 81 points through 76 games, but Nashville has already clinched the tiebreaker with 26 regulation wins compared to L.A.\u2019s 19.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"April 12: This afternoon Nashville reassigned Oesterle to AHL Milwaukee, shared in a press release. The veteran skated…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":551377,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5119],"tags":[5,2409,231,5281,4,2410],"class_list":{"0":"post-551376","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nashville-predators","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-nashville","10":"tag-nashville-predators","11":"tag-nashvillepredators","12":"tag-nhl","13":"tag-predators"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116393850254631191","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=551376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551376\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/551377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=551376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=551376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=551376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}