Top-3 Concerns for Nashville Predators Heading into 2022-23 Season

Concern #3: Nashville Predators don’t fix their penalty problem

This might be the key to the Nashville Predators getting over the hump in 2022-23 and battling for second place in what has become a top-heavy Central Division. A combination of decreasing the rash of penalties while also employing a stingy penalty kill unit.

I have some minor optimism that we’ll at least see some mild improvement in this area. It has to be a focal point for Head Coach John Hynes. He knows his team led the league in penalty minutes, penalties taken, and major penalties. And by a large margin.

The team got smarter and added veteran experience that should help in this area with Niederreiter and McDonagh. I don’t see these two taking momentum crushing penalties like we saw last season on far too many occasions.

This also ties into my first concern regarding Saros and protecting him. How many times was a great game from Saros spoiled by the Predators tiring themselves out constantly killing penalties off?

The Predators will never realistically compete, especially in a seven game series, with the leagues best offensive teams if they come out with this same problem in 2022-23. Sure they can get by against lesser opponents, but not against the top tier teams.

I expect a smarter and more calculated Jeannot this season. I don’t want him to lose that edge, but he does have to be wiser in certain situations. Same goes for Trenin, Ekholm and Lauzon.

The penalty kill finished 18th last year, which was actually an improvement from the previous year. Still not good enough to offset being the most penalized team in the league. If you take that many penalties, you better have one of the NHL’s staunchest penalty kills to neutralize it.

If we can avoid these three concerns, then there’s no reason to think the Nashville Predators can’t finish top-three in division and win a playoff series or two. They have the roster on paper.