The 2025-26 NHL season begins this week, which means that the Nashville Predators can officially put behind them the disaster of 2024-25 and look to rebound. One of the many players looking to rebound is goaltender Juuse Saros, who is coming off of the first true down year of his career.
Saros, like many goaltenders, has had stretches during seasons where he has not been sharp, but he has eventually regained his form. Last year was the first time since he officially took over the starter's crease where he really finished poorly, which is not ideal given his age and contract he just signed.
To be fair to Saros, few goaltenders could have succeeded with the skaters the Predators had in front of him, and he still had several great games. But the Predators signed him to consistently elevate the team, and the fact of the matter is he did not do that nearly enough last year.
A rebound season is possible, but will be difficult even for Juuse Saros
I wrote an article during the offseason centered around the headlining players on the Predators, and more specifically, the likelihood of them having bounce back seasons. I mentioned that for most of them, experiencing full turnaround seasons is unlikely, and that applies to Saros for a few reasons.
Number one, Saros has experienced stretches of poor play in most of his seasons, oftentimes at the beginning, but last year it happened later in the year. There is a high probability that he goes through another one of those at some point, and I do not doubt his ability to eventualy tighten up, but the fact is that every game counts as part of this discussion.
Additionally, the goaltender position is so reliant on what the defense in front of him looks like, and the Predators defense is full of question marks. It does not look that much different from last year when it was awful besides a few changes, and so much has to go right for them to reach their true potential.
Do Roman Josi and Brady Skjei have actual bounce back years? Do guys like Adam Wilsby, Nick Blankenburg, Spencer Stastney, and Justin Barron take steps forward in their respective games? Can Tanner Molendyk make a strong impression when he gets his chance? Is Nic Hague truly an upgrade over Jeremy Lauzon?
That is a lot to depend on, and granted, not every bit of it has to happen in order for the defense to be good enough in front of Saros. And of course, he is the one who is playing in net, so you cannot forever make excuses if he underperforms again.
But the truth is there is a very real chance that the Predators have one of the bottom defenses in the NHL this year, which will make it very tough for Saros to have a great year. He will surely have some unreal games and show he still has elite talent, but it is tough to be confident in a true bounce back year.
Juuse Saros should be better, but may not have elite season
For as much uncertainty as there is with Saros and with how many things are working for and against him, one thing we know is he is still respected as one of the NHL's best goaltenders. Knowing that as well as his talent level, we should expect him to be better than he was in 2024-25.
The real question, however, is just how much better will he be, and realistically, we should not expect him to be a Vezina finalist. He is certainly still capable of it, but there are just too many weaknesses and unknowns on the defense, and you can only expect him to bail them out so much.
I imagine his season is similar to or slightly worse than his 2023-24 campaign, where his first few months were rough except for a few weeks, then he was lights out for the final months. It might not go exactly like that, but statistically, he is probably in that ballpark this year.
Predictions: 62 games played, .902 save %, 2.87 GAA