'The Best Player Ever in Our Franchise:' Roman Josi's Path to Greatness

Roman Josi is already a four-time NHL All-Star, the Nashville Predators career assists leader (420) and the franchise's first-ever Norris Trophy winner. But on Wednesday night at United Center in Chicago, the Predators captain carved out yet another place for himself in franchise history.
With an assist and a game-winning goal against the Blackhawks, Josi earned his 566th and 567th career points to pass David Legwand as the Predators all-time leading scorer. Just like we drew it up!
Well, not exactly.

When the Preds selected Josi at No. 38 overall in the 2008 NHL Draft, they certainly believed he was a special player. Still, hardly anyone could have expected this level of greatness from a second-round defenseman.
"This is a great story for the Nashville Predators, for our whole organization and our scouting staff," General Manager/Director of Hockey Operations David Poile said. "With a second-round pick you draft somebody when they're 18 years old, and you think that you see something, maybe even more than anybody else. And in this case, I think all of our scouts were exactly right."

As Assistant GM and Director of Scouting Jeff Kealty put it, the story of Josi's career has shades of Tom Brady - a player drafted much later than one would expect for someone who would go on to become universally recognized as one of the best players at his position in his respective sport.
"If you could have a do-over, any team would have taken him much earlier, but here we are," Poile said with a chuckle of relief. "Several years later, he's the captain of our team. He's the best player on our team. He's the best player ever in our franchise in my opinion, and now he's the leading scorer in our franchise."
Josi signed an eight-year, $72,472,000 contract with the Predators on Oct. 29, 2019 with a cap hit of $9,059,000. At the time, Poile called it "the most important negotiation we've ever had" - words he probably never expected to utter when he took a chance on a teenager from Bern, Switzerland, 11 years earlier.

"We had a really good feeling about him," said Kealty, who scouted Josi ahead of the 2008 Draft. "To put this situation in context a little bit, back then the Swiss players probably weren't taken quite as seriously as they are now. Now you have Roman, Nico Hischier, Kevin Fiala, Nino Niederreiter - you have a lot of prominent Swiss players in the league, but at the time, I guess it'd be fair to say there's maybe a little bit of a bias against them. But every time we saw Josi
Josi helped SC Bern to the regular-season and playoff titles in the Swiss League in 2009-10 and scored six postseason goals, tops among defensemen. He played for Switzerland at the 2010 World Junior Championship and World Championship and was named to Switzerland's team for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, though he was unable to play because of injury.
Josi had 40 points during his rookie season in North America with the AHL's Milwaukee Admirals in 2010-11 and led the team with 25 power-play points. He made his NHL debut for Nashville on Nov. 11, 2011, against the Detroit Red Wings. He appeared in his first NHL All-Star Game in 2015-16 on home ice in Nashville, and the Preds named him team captain on Sept. 19, 2017. He had 49 points (12g-37a) in 72 games during his first season as captain, then helped the Predators advance to the Stanley Cup Final for the first time since entering the NHL in 1998 with 14 points (6g-8a) in 22 games.
In 2020, Josi became the first player in Predators history to win the Norris Trophy and the second player to win a performance-based NHL award (Pekka Rinne, 2018 Vezina Trophy); he also became the first Swiss-born player to win a major NHL award.
Josi started the 2022-23 season with a full-circle moment that saw him return to his hometown of Bern, Switzerland, for an exhibition game as part of the 2022 NHL Global Series Challenge. In front of a raucous crowd of more than 17,000, including his closest family and friends, Josi led the Predators to a 4-3 victory over his former Swiss professional club SC Bern, tallying two goals and an assist en route to being named the first star of the game.

"I know him from way back, and we both had the same dream," Niederreiter said of his fellow countryman and Predators teammate. "It was a big dream just to play in the NHL, and now we're both here at the same time and both very close to hitting 800 games. Now, he's leading a franchise in points. You couldn't write it any better… He deserves everything."
Having played in 791 career NHL games, Josi will soon hit the 800-game benchmark, and Niederreiter isn't far behind at 763. On Dec. 13, 2022, Josi skated in his 787th career NHL game, passing his idol Mark Streit to become the longest-playing Swiss-born player in League history.
"It's just been really rewarding and gratifying to watch [Josi] developing into the player and into the person that he is today," Kealty said. "For all the miles that all the scouting staff puts in and all the work that goes into it, when you see it come to fruition like that - I always say that's the most rewarding part of the job. It's certainly very special."

Josi has written and rewritten chapters of Predators history with his prowess on the ice. Still, when measuring his impact on this franchise, it's difficult to separate Roman Josi the hockey player from Roman Josi the human being; in fact, doing so would be an injustice.
"I think he just gets better with more years and more maturity," Poile said. "The points are important, but it's just the leadership, the value that he'll bring as we bring new players onto our team… Shea Weber was our captain and our best best defenseman, and now Roman is our captain and best best defenseman; you learn from somebody else. He learned from Shea Weber and Mike Fisher, in particular, and I know with his personality that he's going to want to contribute not only on the ice but off the ice to our franchise."
In becoming the Predators all-time points leader, Josi has all but cemented his face-of-the-franchise status. But even outside of the record books, his legacy in Nashville is one of greatness both on and off the ice.
"[Switzerland] is a beautiful country, and they have some of the nicest people there," Poile said. "And you certainly see that in how Roman conducts himself. Not only is he a very fair player on the ice; he's a real gentleman off the ice. He always has time for everybody and always has a smile on his face. And I think the world is a better place with Roman a part of it."