Nashville Predators: Five Questions Surrounding Team Entering March

Question #4: Will any Preds players or coach snag an NHL award?

At one time the Nashville Predators had three players and head coach John Hynes all making reasonable cases to be considered for an NHL award, with Juuse Saros and Roman Josi being the expected candidates for the Vezina Trophy and the Norris Trophy.

All four, including Tanner Jeannot for the Calder Trophy, still have outside chances of claiming an award. Josi has already won the Norris Trophy back in 2020, and he’s in the midst of a difficult race to win it for a second time thanks to players like Cale Makar and Victor Hedman also making strong cases.

Saros has fallen off lately and might be considered a fringe nominee, but certainly not the frontrunner ahead of Igor Shesterkin of the New York Rangers or Andrei Vasilevskiy of the Tampa bay Lightning.

Saros is fourth in MoneyPuck’s ranking of top goaltenders when looking at goals saved above expected:

It’s going to be tough for any of these four to actually win an awards this season, but if the Predators push into the playoffs then John Hynes should absolutely be considered for the Jack Adams Award, which goes to the Head Coach that contributes the most to their team.

As of the end of January NHL.com had Mike Sullivan of the Pittsburgh Penguins as the leading vote getter, with Hynes coming in 5th in the voting.

I just see too much competition in the other award races for a Predators player to win, although I’d be shocked if Josi doesn’t end up at least with a top-three nomination.