Nashville Predators: Piping Hot Forward Line Projections for 2023-24

Line 4: Kiefer Sherwood — Colton Sissons — Yakov Trenin

As the top line was with two of its three players, two of the guys here — Sissons and Trenin — will obviously be on the fourth line.

Sissons has been a mainstay as a bottom-six center, and is someone who just knows his role and is content with it. There seems to be that mutually beneficial feeling between him and the Predators, and at this point there is a legitimate chance that he finishes out his long-term contract that was considered an anomaly at the time of signing.

Trenin is also a clear bottom-six forward, and he too knows that his role is to be a physical presence for the team. Who knows how much longer he will be here, as his contract only has one more year, but he is still around for now and will play in the spot where he clearly belongs.

People might debate who the other spot should belong to, but I clearly think it should be Sherwood. His presence at the beginning of last year was scorned by many fans, as he was supposedly taking a spot from Tomasino despite having nowhere near the talent or future of Tomasino.

However, towards the end of last year, Sherwood was objectively playing well with the opportunity he had. He is one of those players to whom the word “energy” really applies, and the effort he made on a nightly basis was seen and rewarded.

And it is not like he was playing in an insignificant role, he was on a line with Novak and Evangelista for most of the stretch to end the year. He was actually contributing too, showing that he is someone who is at least a bottom-six caliber player.

There are other bottom six candidates such as Mark Jankowski, Cole Smith, and Michael McCarron who are very good rotational players and will probably see some games this coming year. But Sherwood is someone who really caught my eye as well as several others, so I would like to see him get that final spot.