Following the roster move to send Jarred Tinrodi back to Milwaukee, the Nashville Predators have a tough decision to make as to who will be on their bottom defense pairing.
The Nashville Predators are in quite a pickle to begin the season, as all of the viable options looked less than impressive this preseason.
However, they are going to have to figure out who will make up the duo on the bottom pairing, and they have four options to do so: Steven Santini, Matt Irwin, Dan Hamhuis, and Yannick Weber.
The first of those options, Steven Santini may have an inside edge on staying on the roster because he had just arrived via the P.K. Subban trade made this past June.
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It would be a bad look on the franchise to waive him before he gets any regular season playing time after a trade like that, but other than that he doesn’t have much going for him.
He looked less than stellar all preseason, looking like a weak link on the blueline, especially in the final game of the preseason where the Predators were pinned in their own zone for the majority of the game, but maybe his youth and upside will work in his favor.
He is the youngest of the four options, as he is 24 years of age going into this season, which means he will likely have the most room to improve.
However, I can see him being a healthy scratch to start the season, as he didn’t do much to impress the Nashville Predators enough to throw him out there to start the season.
Another guy who didn’t impress all that much this preseason was Matt Irwin, as he was having the same struggles as Santini this preseason.
They were paired together in the final game against Carolina and every time they were out together, it looked like a disaster, and that should deter Peter Laviolette from pairing the two of them together in the regular season.
Yannick Weber will likely be the guy winning the job on the right side of the pairing, as he showed that he was the more consistent of the two options.
He also clocked in more games than Irwin last season, which will likely be the case again this season, as he is a more trustworthy option on the backend.
As for the left side, Dan Hamhuis will win the starting role over Santini, as the 36-year-old looks like he is the best of the four options.
Does he have much left in the tank? No, but he is still a very trustworthy defensive defenseman for his age, and that will have to do for the Nashville Predators for now.
Jeremy Davies and Jarred Tinordi could be call ups in the future, as they were a lot more impressive during the preseason, but for now, Dan Hamhuis and Yannick Weber seem to be the bottom pairing on the opening night roster.