Nashville Predators: Three Big Storylines as Training Camp Approaches

It’s hard to believe that training camp for the NHL season is less than a week away for the new-look Nashville Predators.

There hasn’t been this much uncertainty surrounding the Nashville Predators heading into a training camp in quite a while. This is what happens when you fall short of expectations for three consecutive seasons.

Training camp will officially open for the Predators on January 3. The seven unfortunate teams who didn’t go to the Stanley Cup Qualifiers will start on New Year’s Eve as they’ve been out of organized hockey for over nine months.

The Predators are a team in flux that has a lot to figure out, with not much time do it. Head Coach John Hynes is heading into his first full season as the franchise’s third head coach in its 22-year history.

With plenty to watch for heading into training camp, I’ve narrowed it down to three big things that’s going to be on everyone’s radars.

A lineup with many possibilities

There was no consistency within the lineup last season, and that has to change going into 2021. The Predators have to find what works the best and hopefully avoid long-term injuries to their core players.

That first lineup reveal on Day 1 of training camp will be interesting. Will the classic JoFA line be kept intact? Where will the new free agents pick-ups fit in? What will the power play and penalty units look like?

There’s predictions galore out there on how the lineup will be assembled. It’s going to be a work-in-progress early on. That much is pretty certain.

At least in the early going I expect Filip Forsberg, Ryan Johansen and Viktor Arvidsson to stay together on the top line. They’ve built undeniable chemistry over the years and it would be a classic case of overthinking it to break them up.

See if you can capture that old magic with the JoFA line. Who Hynes initially pairs with Matt Duchene is what has me intriguing the most. Eeli Tolvanen, Mikael Granlund, Luke Kunin and even Philip Tomasino are possible candidates.

How these players perform in training camp is something to keep a close eye on to see who ends up initially on the second line.

The bottom-six doesn’t have nearly as much intrigue around it, but I’m excited to see how the newcomers look, most notably Erik Haula. His net presence and tenacity is something that can possibly replace the loss of Craig Smith.

The goaltender debate rolls on

It feels like we’ve been having this talk about Pekka Rinne and Juuse Saros for a decade now. In reality, it’s been about two years, but that’s not going to stop it from being a focal point once again in training camp.

I’m not convinced that the opening night starting role is completely locked in for Saros. He should be the top candidate going into training camp, but Hynes doesn’t owe him a starting spot with Rinne as the perceived backup.

Saros has earned the right to have the spot until something dramatically shifts that narrative through poor play. I don’t think we’re going to see enough one way or the other in training  camp to remove Saros as the starter for the season-opener against the Columbus Blue Jackets.

With this new schedule that features a condensed 56 games and a lot of back-to-backs, who the primary starter is means less. Saros might get slightly more starts than Rinne when it’s all said and done, but not by much.

Both Saros and Rinne are going to be leaned upon heavily, as will be the case for most teams with two of their goaltenders.

Can Rinne capture his Vezina Trophy form from 2018 for one more run? Can Saros finally put the critics to rest and show he’s ready to take the torch from Rinne for the long run? These are two big questions that obviously won’t be answered in training camp, but I’m all in on seeing how they look leading up to January 14.

With no preseason games to get a gauge on Rinne and Saros, training camp will be important to see how sharp they are in drills and scrimmages. In the end, we won’t really know until the games are underway.