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Five Reachable Goals for the Revamped Nashville Predators in 2023-24

By Chad Minton

Cole Smith #36 of the Nashville Predators celebrates his empty-net goal against the Boston Bruins during the third period at the TD Garden on March 28, 2023 in Boston, Massachusetts. The Predators won 2-1.(Photo by Richard T Gagnon/Getty Images)
Cole Smith #36 of the Nashville Predators celebrates his empty-net goal against the Boston Bruins during the third period at the TD Garden on March 28, 2023 in Boston, Massachusetts. The Predators won 2-1.(Photo by Richard T Gagnon/Getty Images) /
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(Photo by Brett Carlsen/Getty Images) /

Goal #2: A Top-10 Offense for the Nashville Predators

You may categorize this as a crazy goal that’s not going to happen, but I actually have some decent optimism that Andrew Brunette can make this a viable scoring team. A team that can win some games in the 5-4 variety.

A primary reason for this optimism is I’m fairly confident that the power play is going to show considerable improvement.

With a healthy Filip Forsberg returning (more on that later), the signing of Ryan O’Reilly, and another year of development for the youth core, this power play should look a lot better in 2023-24.

I’m looking for Luke Evangelista to make some noise coming into his first full year in the NHL after being a late season call-up in 2023 and quickly becoming a reliable offensive contributor.

If Evangelista gets top line minutes like he should to open up, then I like his chances to boost a stale Nashville power play that had the seventh-fewest power play goals at 5v4 and was among the bottom 10 teams in Expected Goals For at 5v4.

I’m also further optimistic with Tyson Barrie returning and being a power play quarterback, along with other power play specialists in Philip Tomasino, Cody Glass and, of course, Roman Josi.

One downside to this is three of the top-six power play point producers from 2022-23 are now gone; Matt Duchene, Mikael Granlund and Ryan Johansen.

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