Nashville Predators: Potential Breakout Players for 2021 Season

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As the Stanley Cup Playoffs continue to roll along, the Nashville Predators are well into their offseason trying to figure out what can be better next season.

This isn’t a fun feeling sitting at home watching the Stanley Cup Playoffs as a Nashville Predators fan. We’ve become accustomed to them at least making it to the “first round” not just some qualifier round.

Either way, next season looks to be a challenging one for the Predators as they’ll have to sort out a few key free agents and elevate certain prospects into bigger roles. There’s also still no concrete plan on when the new season will begin, but 2021 looks likely.

This team is going to look much different on opening night with a clean slate, whenever that happens. With that comes the opportunity for newcomers to burst onto the scene, and for current players to thrive with elevated ice time.

We have some potential breakout players for the Predators going into next season, which will primarily be played in the new calendar year of 2021, presumably.

Matt Duchene

This might come as somewhat of a surprise pick considering Matt Duchene is already an accomplished player in the NHL. But the Predators need way more from him going into next season.

Duchene is an outstanding puck handler. That’s his best trait he brings to the table, and now that has to translate to more scoring opportunities to whichever teammates line up with him, presumably once again on the second line.

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The goals obviously have to dramatically go up for Duchene in 2021 as the Predators will try to make another trip to the playoffs. He had just 13 goals despite playing mostly on the second line alongside some solid offensive weapons.

You can blame coaching strategy and just bad luck on some of Duchene’s misfortunes, but in his second year with the Predators he’s going to need to up his production to near some of his best offensive career totals.

With an offseason to get refreshed and get more settled in will be good for Duchene. I love his response to adversity following heavy criticism in the Stanley Cup Qualifiers.

Now we need the Duchene that can string it together for a full season.

Asking for 20-plus goals and 30 to 40 assists isn’t a reach for Duchene. A 60-point season is very attainable considering he just put up 70 points right before he joined Nashville.

Rocco Grimaldi

The steady incline of Rocco Grimaldi has been one of the few bright spots for the Predators over the last two seasons. He’s a vital part of this team, even if some people outside of the Nashville market don’t know it yet.

Grimaldi just leaves it all out there. He’s a player you want to go to battle with. He hunts for loose pucks, crashes the net and flies all over ice despite his smaller size.

What’s the next step for Grimaldi in his progression? Well, he just got done shattering his career highs in many statistical categories such as goals, assists, points, plus/minus and ice time.

Grimaldi also got into 66 games this past season, which is 13 more than his previous season.

Before joining the Predators, Grimaldi had just 37 games under his NHL belt. The Predators have given him the coveted opportunity to stick around, and he’s taking advantage of it.

Can Grimaldi up his production even more? Possibly, but it’s also fair to say that being a 30-plus point scorer is his ceiling and what you need from your bottom-six depth players.

If Grinaldi breaks out even more next season, then we’ll be seeing him in the top-six and be the story of the entire NHL.

Dante Fabbro

The Predators desperately need the young Dante Fabbro to take a big step forward next season. Their defense has become top-heavy with Roman Josi and Ryan Ellis on the top pairing, but there’s a lot of uncertainty after that.

Even more so, there’s growing speculation that Mattias Ekholm could conceivably only have one more year left in Nashville before being exposed in the next expansion draft for the Seattle Kraken.

Fabbro has shown promise. He does a lot of the little things well like being in the right spot defensively to make plays and get the puck back on the attack. Now we need to see more offensive growth from him in 2021.

If the Predators are going to take a step forwards next season, and not another step in reverse, Fabbro is a key player that has to keep improving. If he breaks out suddenly into an offensive contributor and continues to round out his defensive game, then the Predators will have a solid top-two defensive pairings and something to work with.

I’m encouraged that Fabbro will gradually keep growing into a viable second line defenseman, but I’d rather see the Predators make a move in free agency to get Fabbro on the third pairing.

We’ll see what happens in what figures to be a wild Fall free agency period.

Juuse Saros

I know it’s odd to see Juuse Saros on this list considering he’s already been on the Predators for a while now, and you can argue he’s already had his “breakout moments” and stretches.

But now the next step for Saros is putting together an entire season’s worth of quality starts that can directly impact getting the Predators back into the top tier of the Western Conference.

Goaltending, for many reasons, took a big dip this past season. That’s why the Predators aren’t in the Edmonton bubble anymore, and their stay was very brief.

For it to be considered a “breakout” season for Saros in 2021, he’s going to need to show everyone that Pekka Rinne is for sure the backup. He has to put those thoughts to rest that Rinne will have to be called upon once again as the starter to save the day and find the fountain of youth.

Saros has the skills and fortitude to go down the same successful path that Rinne once went down over a decade ago. Depending on how long the regular season ends up being next season, Saros should get over half the starts and be the main guy called upon.

I’m looking for Saros to get his save percentage above 92 and steer clear of the numerous starts of giving up three or more goals. He has to become that goaltender that can steal games from time to time when the team as a whole isn’t at their best.

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Honorable mention

These are some players that I think can definitely crack the starting roster and begin to make a name for themselves on the NHL level.

Most notably, Eeli Tolvanen should get a great opportunity to finally stick around on the Predators everyday roster, and possibly even charge his way into the top-six of the roster depending on what happens in free agency.

I like the thought of getting Alexandre Carrier onto the third defensive pairing as he’ll bring more offensive skills to a spot on the defense that has had virtually zero offensive punch for two seasons now.

Finally, I’ll be very surprised if Philip Tomasino doesn’t at some point get called up to the Predators roster. Maybe not for opening night of the regular season, but at some point in 2021.

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