The team breakup, synonymous with a failed season, is underway. The Nashville Predators began their in-season dissection by trading Gustav Nyquist to the Minnesota Wild for a second-round pick. The trade included the condition that the Predators would retain 50 percent of Nyquist’s contract.
Since the Predators have already waived the white flag on the season, they won’t necessarily add any notable players this year. Combined with the fact that Nyquist will become a free agent this summer, the stipulations aren’t significant.
Every season, teams become “buyers” or “sellers” around the trade deadline. As a fan, you hope your team is in a position to add assets for a playoff run, rather than selling off players to focus on the future.
The Predators have been heading toward what seems like an inevitability for a long time, though some fans may have hoped the campaign would turn around. Of course, it hasn’t, and it won’t. All the Predators can do now is play out the remainder of the schedule and start building for next season. The Predators want to compete, their fans deserve a winning team, and they have too many aging stars on their roster to not give it their all in the immediate future.
With over a month left in the regular season, here are three things the Predators must do now to set themselves up for success next year:
1. Find Roman Josi a consistent defensive partner
There is plenty of blame to go around for this dreary season. Every player on the roster has performed below expectations, including the team’s brightest stars, such as Josi. The Predators’ captain is one of the first to take accountability for poor performances, so he surely won’t be looking for excuses as to why this year went so badly. But the 34-year-old hasn’t had the luxury of consistency.
According to Natural Stat Trick, Josi has played with nine defensive partners for 30 minutes or more during five-on-five play this season. The Swiss-born defenseman has a flair for the game. He loves driving the rush and getting involved in the offensive zone. The Predators are certainly better when he does this, but his partner must complement his style.
Remember when the Predators were arguably the envy of the league for their defensive corps, first with Josi paired with Shea Weber, and later with Josi and Ryan Ellis manning the blue line? It’s easy to see why these pairings worked. Josi loves providing offense, while Ellis and Weber excelled defensively by playing a more reserved game, allowing Josi to carry the puck.
The Predators have defensive-minded players on their roster this year—though not to the caliber of Weber and Ellis in their prime—who should be able to offer that balance to Josi’s game. Clearly, the big caveat here is Josi’s current injury. It will be much harder to find the right partner for the All-Star defenseman while he is sidelined week-to-week. But depending on if and when he returns this season, the Predators need to experiment with different options.
Two players who might work—depending on whether they are on the team next season—are Justin Barron and Andreas Englund. Barron has one more year left on his contract after this season, while Englund will become an unrestricted free agent on July 1st unless the Predators sign him beforehand.
Josi and Barron have already logged some time together this season, and from early looks, it hasn’t been too bad. Barron has shown that he can shoot from the blue line, which opponents must respect, giving Josi more time and space to move and set up for a one-timer on his offside.
Englund has added instant stability to the backend. His large frame allows him to play physically, a quality you don’t often see from Josi due to his skill set. Englund relies on reading the ice and making the initial pass out of the zone, rather than carrying the puck as Josi would typically do.
Ideally, another star or highly skilled defenseman would pair with Josi to form the top defensive pairing, but since this hasn’t worked with Brady Skjei and the other mainstay defensemen, this may be the next best option.
2. Keep elevating younger players
The Predators have seen flashes of promise from several younger players this season. Many of their opportunities have arisen due to the subpar performance of the team as a whole. But the grit and offensive upside from Zachary L’Heureux, who was the Predators’ first-round pick in the 2021 NHL draft, should excite both the team and its fans. Unfortunately for the Predators, L’Heureux is currently dealing with an upper-body injury and is considered week-to-week. But there is a lot of potential with the 21-year-old.
The Predators’ other first-round pick from the 2021 draft, Fedor Svechkov, is another player to watch, and the team should give this youngster as much playing time as possible. He’s currently averaging just over 12 minutes of ice time, but with Nyquist’s departure and possibly more trades ahead with the deadline approaching, more opportunity could be on the horizon.
At just 21 years old, Svechkov already has a lethal shot and a desire to put pucks on net, which the Predators desperately need. Watching him, there are moments where the game seems a bit too big for the rookie. But with more conditioning in the league, Svechkov should develop into an extremely talented goal scorer.
The Predators want to leave this season in the rearview mirror and get back to winning ways as soon as possible, using the veterans currently on the roster. A key to their success will be secondary scoring, and Svechkov can provide that moving forward. While there’s risk in rushing a young player’s development, there’s little to no risk in giving Svechkov chances to play in critical moments and possibly increasing his power-play time. The team has nothing to lose this season.
3. Split starts evenly between Juuse Saros and Justus Annunen
Saros is the Predators’ workhorse, and there’s no doubt about that. Since the 2021-22 season, he has led the league in starts. It’s become the Predators’ way, similar to the workload Pekka Rinne received. The team has been spoiled with elite goaltending for many years, and they’ve relied on that skill—understandably so.
This season, like many others on the team, Saros is having a down year. It could be because he’s simply been off, or perhaps the team in front of him has played poorly. Most likely, it’s a mixture of both. Saros has started 46 of the team’s 61 games, the third most in the league, and faced the fourth-most shots. Despite the team’s struggles and Saros’ less-than-stellar performance, the Predators continue to call on him frequently.
But the Predators were able to correct one of their more questionable decisions—signing Scott Wedgewood—when they traded him to the Colorado Avalanche for Annunen. The 24-year-old backup has performed admirably, bailing the Predators out more than once when defensive play has been haphazard, at best. You can’t really argue that Annunen doesn’t inspire confidence when he starts between the pipes. He has starter potential and considering the Predators rarely give the nod to anyone other than their listed starter, Annunen could be immensely valuable to the team.
For the same reason the Predators should give more playing time to their prospects, they should split the starts evenly between Saros and Annunen moving forward. The season is effectively over, so why put unnecessary strain on Saros, another critical piece for next season’s success? Let him rest, see the game from a different perspective, and reset his mindset. Playing him for the majority of the games down the stretch is a high-risk, low-reward scenario, and the Predators don’t need to do that.
Plus, getting more tape on Annunen can only help, especially since next season will be the last year of his current deal. The Predators will need a serviceable backup for Saros, and Annunen could be the answer.
This season will likely go down as one of the worst in franchise history—definitely one fans will want to forget. General Manager Barry Trotz has already shown that he sees success in the immediate future, which is why he signed the players he did in the previous offseason. He has also expressed the desire and intention of making this season an anomaly and becoming one of the league’s best next year. For that to happen, the plan must start now.
It’s been an incredibly painful season for everyone involved—coaches, players, and especially fans. The only way to make it even slightly bearable is knowing that the suffering wasn’t in vain. Some good must come from the season that may go down as the "year that shall not be named"—the foundation for a brighter future.