Colorado just told Chris MacFarland he can leave and a team has swooped in

Update: MacFarland has been hired by Nashville.

Multiple sources indicate owner Bill Haslam met MacFarland face-to-face and Nashville wants this done fast.

The urgency from Nashville is obvious. The Predators have been the only NHL team without a general manager since Barry Trotz stepped aside mid-season, and they have 12 draft picks including 10th overall plus $28 million in cap space waiting for someone to deploy it.

But the real headline is not that Nashville asked. It is that Colorado said yes.

When the Anaheim Ducks requested permission to interview MacFarland during their own GM search, Joe Sakic blocked the request entirely.

He then sat down with MacFarland, asked what he wanted, and promoted him from assistant GM to general manager.

That sequence told the league everything about how Colorado valued its front office architect.

This time, Sakic granted permission. The difference is structural. There is no promotion left to offer.

Sakic holds the President of Hockey Operations title, and short of firing himself, there is nowhere for MacFarland to go inside that organization.

Nashville is reportedly offering a Vice President of Hockey Operations role, a genuine step above his current position.

Colorado won 55 games and earned 121 points this season. Vegas swept them out of the Western Conference Final while holding them to seven total goals across four games.

MacFarland built a roster good enough for the best regular season record in hockey, and it was dismantled in the span of a week.

That kind of collapse does not break organizations, but it does loosen the grip on people who were already eyeing the ceiling above them.

Nashville is not just hiring a GM. They are inheriting the executive who watched a Presidents' Trophy team get swept and decided there might be something bigger elsewhere.

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