How long can Nashville Predators hold it together without Juuse Saros?

Juuse Saros was held out of the season-opener against the Dallas Stars on Thursday, and the Nashville Predators lost 4-3 despite throwing 36 shots at Jake Oettinger.

From Adam Vingan of 102.5 The Game, this was the first season-opener for the Predators that wasn't started by Juuse Saros or Pekka Rinne since 2009-10 when Dan Ellis started the season-opener.

Scott Wedgewood, who was facing his former team and was acquired in free agency by Nashville over the offseason, surrendered four goals on just 20 shots faced. At least three of them were manageable saves to make, and the goal that made it 4-1 and the ultimate difference-maker on the scoreboard was from a low danger area outside of the faceoff circle.

There's not a lot of crystal clear injury news on Saros other than he's listed as "day-to-day" and that it's not really that serious. Makes you wonder if the Predators chose the overly cautious route to not make the injury worse and if Saros would've played if it was a do-or-die type of situation.

You can't risk making a minor injury worse this early in the season

Clearly the season-opener isn't a do-or-die situation and as much as you want Saros in there, you can't risk making an injury worse with 81 games to go, and hopefully many more in the playoffs.

Look, I wasn't overly thrilled at the Wedgwood signing to begin with. He's a decent backup goalie, nothing more and nothing less. Can he hold it together for a short stretch as the starter? Maybe, but he's also not a fulltime starter you can trust by any means. He's a career backup.

Luckily the Predators have revamped their offense and should be able to be a top-10 offense this year, which will allow them to overcome shaky goalie play. They almost pulled that off last night with a commendable third period comeback attempt that fell just short.

Steven Stamkos, in his Predators debut, hit the post in the final moment to nearly tie it at 4-4 and push it to overtime.

There will be plenty of times this season when the Predators win games through their offense and not necessarily because their goalie had to stand on their head. So at least we have that going for us if in fact Wedgewood has to make a few more starts in the early part of the 2024-25 schedule. I think they can overcome.

There's also indications out there, including from Preds beat writer Russell Vannozzi of Mainstreet Nashville, that Saros was held out in an abundance of caution and it's "nothing too bad".

Without knowing the exact details of the lower body injury to Saros, I'm unsure if this is a pain management ordeal or something that can be made worse if he's rushed back too soon. I've to assume it's avoiding making it worse and then you forced to turn to Wedgewood for several games in a row.

Preds luckily have an improved offense that can cover up bad nights in net

With all of this put out there, I think the Predators could hold their head above water with Wedgewood in net for a few games to open this season. However, if something were to happen that left Saros on the shelf for long stints, I have trouble thinking that the Predators could even make the playoffs.

So if the Predators are trying to cautiously manage the Saros injury so they don't make it worse, then it was 100 percent the right decision to hold him out of the season-opener, even if it cost you getting a win. It's a marathon, not a sprint. Make sure your franchise goalie is ready for the long haul.

The bigger concern is even when Saros is back 100 percent and ready to take the bulk of the starts, are we going to be able to trust Wedgewood to handle the duties of a backup? He's signed for two years at $3 million after Kevin Lankinen was lost in free agency and eventually, after waiting a while, signed with the Vancouver Canucks.

Yaroslav Askarov was also a backup goalie option going into the offseason if Lankinen wasn't retained, but after a lot of trade speculation and a little drama, he was traded to the San Jose Sharks. That left no competition in training camp for the backup role. It belonged to Wedgewood unopposed.

We'll see if Saros is ready for the road game on Saturday against the Detroit Red Wings. My assumption is he'll be ready to go and just needed a little more time to get to 100 percent.