Reaction to NHL 23 Predicting Nashville Predators to Finish 4th in Central

Everyone loves these preseason predictions and can’t get enough of them, and many are coming on board with projecting the Nashville Predators to qualify for the playoffs for the ninth-straight season.

There are so many gamers out there, and NHL 23 from EA Sports is launching worldwide later this week. Where did the game simulate the Nashville Predators finishing, and who are the division winners?

The 2022-23 NHL season simulation according to NHL 23 has the Nashville Predators finishing fourth in the Central Division. A totally fair and realistic projection, although I can see them finishing as high as second place and wouldn’t be a major surprise at all.

The Nashville Predators are better than 4th place on paper

The Nashville Predators roster on paper should be able to go toe-to-toe with every team in the division and win a lot of regular season games. A fourth-place finish would be a letdown.

My question, which will stick with me until the 2023 postseason gets here, is can this team live up to the pressure of winning a playoff series for the first time since 2018.? Whether they barely sneak in or earn themselves a home ice advantage in the first round, I need to see it to believe it.

According to the game simulation, the Colorado Avalanche will win the Central Division, which proves that this whole exercise shouldn’t be thrown in the garbage. If it did project the Avs to finish anywhere other than first place, then I would ask the simulation what other whacky predictions it can give us.

The Minnesota Wild will finish runner-up, while the St. Louis Blues will finish in third place. Again, a totally fair prediction.  However, I really don’t understand the love affair with the Wild from so many people, and apparently AI simulations.

The Wild had an underwhelming offseason, and their defensive core doesn’t impress me when I stack it up against the rest of the Central Division.

Losing Kevin Fiala is a big blow to their offensive prowess, and just how much does Marc-Andre Fluery have left in the tank?

The Blues I get. They’re extremely deep, have championship pedigree and pushed the Avalanche in the last postseason harder than any other team they went up against. My only question about them is Jordan Binnington. Not sure I can trust him to be the guy to carry them to a Stanley Cup, but being second-best in the division, or in this case third-best, is totally plausible.

The Dallas Stars are the team that can throw a monkey wrench into this simulation. They are so incredibly difficult to figure out. They could be next up behind the Avs while they could also miss the playoffs altogether. The NHL 23 simulation has them finishing fifth.

And no surprise to anyone, the bottom three teams of the division are the Winnipeg Jets, Arizona Coyotes and Chicago Blackhawks.

The simulation doesn’t go into detail on playoff seeding and what happens after that. If this projection holds true, then the Nashville Predators will be a wildcard team again or be right on that playoff bubble.

With all of the offseason moves the Nashville Predators front office made, let’s hope these robots are wrong. That would be an underwhelming end result to a season if the Predators finish in fourth.