NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The Nashville Predators added depth on the blue line Saturday, claiming defenseman Daemon Hunt off waivers from the Minnesota Wild.
General manager Chris MacFarland, who is also the team’s president of hockey operations, announced the move. Hunt, 24, had played in 11 games for Minnesota this season, logging an average of 14 minutes, 8 seconds per night and putting six shots on net.
Standing 6-foot-1 and 193 pounds, the left-handed shooter has spent his whole NHL career with the Wild, getting into 56 games since his debut in the 2023-24 season and picking up seven assists. He also added an assist in five games during Minnesota’s second-round playoff series against Colorado last spring.
Minnesota picked Hunt with the 65th selection of the 2020 NHL Draft, a third-round choice, and signed him to a three-year entry-level deal in May 2021. He has piled up 59 points, eight goals and 51 assists, over 173 games in the American Hockey League with Iowa and Cleveland.
A native of Brandon, Manitoba, Hunt was a first-round pick of the Moose Jaw Warriors in the 2017 WHL bantam draft, going 15th overall. He played parts of five seasons there, serving as an alternate captain in 2019-20 before wearing the captain’s C in 2020-21 and 2021-22, and also spent a brief stretch on loan to Virden, an MJHL club, finishing his junior career with 94 points in 163 games.
Hunt joins a Predators club that competes in the Central Division of the Western Conference and plays its home games at Bridgestone Arena. The team did not say right away whether Hunt would join the lineup for its next game.
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