It’s not a fun group to be in by any means, but the Nashville Predators get to watch the 2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs from afar like the rest of us, an unfamiliar place for this organization.
None of the eight first-round series have ended in a sweep, and no team has been eliminated just yet, with the Florida Panthers and New York Islanders on the brink of elimination down 3-1 in their respective series.
Shifting our focus ahead to the offseason and beyond to 2023-24, just how do the Nashville Predators compare to the other teams that failed to qualify for the playoffs? Are they in a much better place, or are they doomed to hit a postseason drought for a few years?
I’ve broken the non-playoff teams into three tiers; “On the Doorstep”, “A Work-in-Progress”, and “In the Basement”. I think you can figure out which tier is which, so let’s start with who’s in the basement first, and which tier the Nashville Predators will fall under.