Brady Martin should without a doubt be a starter for Nashville Predators opening night

Nashville Predators General Manager Barry Trotz has his work cut out for him to see if he's actually going to go through with throwing his 2025 fifth-overall pick Brady Martin right into the fire on opening night of the 2025-26 NHL season.

Martin has impressed in Predators training camp and shown no red flags to not being ready for the opportunity. His confidence, poise and hockey IQ has shown in the preseason, and the Predators are in desperate need of some kind of spark after what they showed us last season with 68 points and a 30th place overall finish.

The Predators potential starting lineup remains up-for-grabs for a few spots among the forwards. The injury to Matthew Wood changes things considerably as he was a likely candidate to crack the opening night lineup.

Martin is getting extra reps towards the end of training camp with the veteran heavy hitters of the lineup, lining up with Ryan O'Reilly and Filip Forsberg in the most recent practice. He even managed to get one past Juuse Saros.

The situation makes too much sense for the Nashville Predators to start Brady Martin right out of the gate

Now we have to look at who currently remains on the training camp roster and decide who are the roster locks and who are the unknown. I ranked my top-5 roster bubble players who I would put in, and Martin was definitely one of them.

My ideal placement for Martin to start his NHL career with the Predators is on the third line. He can play center or go to the wing, even though his future is certainly as a top-six center that Nashville has always desperately tried to draft.

Martin on Nashville's third line could line up with veteran Erik Haula and be joined by fellow youngster Zachary L'Heureux who is going into his second NHL season. A third line of Haula at center and Martin and L'Heureux on the wing gives you a veteran to take on the heavy lifting.

This would leave Nashville's fourth line with some familiar faces in Michael McCarron at center and Cole Smith on a wing. That leaves them with Tyson Jost, newly acquired through waivers, to possibly fill the other spot.

Not knowing what the status will be with RFA Luke Evangelista also makes this really hard to predict. If Evangelista gets signed at the last minute, then where does he slot in? Probably the top-six, but he has also missed all of training camp so is that really where you want to throw him right away?

Joakim Kemell will also have something to say about Martin getting in or out to start the season. However, if you include the extras and exclude the injured Wood, it leaves room for both Kemell and Martin to start on opening night.

This is of course all speculation for opening night, as we know this will be a fluid situation that will change from game-to-game. Head Coach Andrew Brunette will have to do a lot of shuffling early on to find something that really clicks. He has a lot of options.

As it pertains to Martin's unique situation, I don't see any major risk in letting him play out his nine-game stint before going back to junior hockey for another season. He can't be called up once he plays that small amount of games due to being only 18-years-old.

Seeing early on what you have in your fifth-overall pick who has shown no signs of being cautious just makes too much sense. It will spark the locker room and who knows, maybe Martin just completely seizes the opportunity and overperforms. If not, then you send him back to junior hockey for another year to dominate down there.

With Wood out as a week-to-week injury status and the complete unknown of Evangelista's contract standoff, it makes perfect sense to give Martin his shot to open the season. Don't wait until the season is off the rails in February and break up his junior hockey season. See what you have in him and how he responds to the pressure of the spotlight with a clean slate of a new regular season.