Nashville Predators Grades: Anymore Room Left for Austin Watson?

The question that swirled around Austin Watson all season long was if his spot on the everyday roster for the Nashville Predators was justified.

There is some great, young talent at the AHL level for the Nashville Predators, and that means that players like Austin Watson have to earn their roster spot.

The Predators lineup was one that changed constantly until the last couple of weeks before the pause. Watson was in and out of the lineup due to questionable play.

Now you have to wonder if there’s a long-term future for Watson and the Predators. What makes things more complicated is that the team signed Watson to an extension this past October that goes until 2022-23.

So this obviously makes the Predators more committed to finding a spot for Watson, but his play has to justify that to keep more valuable players from being called up to take his place.

Hard to find positives

Let’s start with what Watson does well. There’s no arguing that he does the dirty work. He’s not afraid to lay his body out there and block a big shot. We’ve seen that numerous times and it’s a commendable and notable part of his game.

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Aside from that, the positives were few and far between from Watson this past season. More times than not he was either non-existent when the team was attacking offensively, or affecting the team badly in defensive terms.

Watson struggled to make any kind of major impact on the fourth line, which was where he mainly played. Then the healthy scratches started coming along in favor of players from Milwaukee like Colin Blackwell and Yakov Trenin.

With the time missed Watson finished with 53 games played on the season and amassed just 14 points. Not a good point production at all for this point in his career. He should be peaking and instead he seems to be regressing.

Watson also had the lowest Corsi for percentage of his career at a meager 42.1, which is way below the league average. It tells me his offensive impact was virtually nothing.

Can’t justify a roster spot

This makes it hard to justify putting him on the roster when you have others that are blossoming in Milwaukee right now and deserve the NHL opportunity on a consistent basis.

I can’t give him a complete failing grade because he does some dirty work that no one else wants to do. He’s throw his body out there and occasionally force a gritty goal by crashing the net and creating chaos.

For that you have to commend, but it just doesn’t happen often enough, and many times he takes costly penalties that a horrendous Predators penalty kill just couldn’t afford.

Watson had 65 pently minutes, which would’ve approached his career high had he played in a full slate of games. Or at least come close to it.

Watson has to take a big jump forward next season to change my mind. As I said, the team has to be somewhat committed to him, but not if there are better options that can help the team’s bottom six.

Luckily the third line came in to save the day on many occasions, which masked the problem areas on an ever-changing fourth line that Watson was usually featured on.

This probably comes off as a bit harsh on Watson, but it comes down to having the best players play. If Watson can’t drastically improve his overall game next season, then more healthy scratches are in his future.

Tough to say, but Watson may be becoming a player who occasionally plays when a regular needs a maintenance day or there are numerous injuries. He’s expensive to be relegated as that type, but you have to go with the group that gives you the best chance to win, ultimately.