Huge step backward after Nashville Predators fail to show up against Edmonton Oilers

It's an 82-game regular season grind with plenty of ups and downs, and it's fair to say the Nashville Predators are going back downward after a demoralizing 5-1 loss to the Edmonton Oilers on Thursday.

You would be completely fair to characterize this loss as the Predators' worst performance of the young season from start to finish. There really was never any strong moments in the game, and the Oilers basically dominated from opening puck drop to the final horn.

The lone goal the Predators managed to score, which tied it at 1-1 early in the game, came from Filip Forsberg in a fortunate instance of right place at the right time. To Forsberg's credit, he did bury the shot and took advantage.

Nothing worked for the Nashville Predators, everything went wrong

The positives really stop there for the Predators on this night, and Leon Draisaitl continued his ridiculous ownership of this franchise with another three points (2 goals, 1 assist).

This all comes with Connor McDavid sidelined with a lower body injury that will force him to miss at least a couple of weeks. Furthermore, the Oilers much like the Predators have gotten off to a underwhelming start to their 2024-25 campaign.

You wouldn't of noticed it on this particular night, however I'll circle back and say the Predators also didn't make it all that hard on them, either. More defensive breakdowns, more bad passing, and more of a team that's just not on the same page with each other.

The Predators offense wasn't any better, managing just 27 shots on goal and most of them were fairly routine saves for Edmonton goalie Calvin Pickard. Additionally, the Predators only generated nine high danger chances at 5-on-5.

The Oilers also only had nine high danger chances for at 5-on-5, but still managed to muster up five goals on Juuse Saros. So to add insult to injury, the Oilers didn't even need a magnificent offensive performance to pile up their five goals.

This brings me to Saros, who was also just as bad as the rest of his team. In other words, nothing went right for the Predators and it looked horrendous right out of the gate. The Oilers scored just 37 seconds into the game on a goal from Viktor Arvidsson.

Arvidsson's line with Draisaitl and Vasily Podkolzin was bullying around the Predators in the first period. Initially it looked like Saros was standing tall and holding off the barrage, but as the game wore on he just couldn't get locked in to save the Predators.

This is easily the worst overall performance of the season for the Predators through the first 10 games. There wasn't any commendable comeback attempt, and you saw it from very early on that the Predators weren't ready to play. Even Head Coach Andrew Brunette admitted that in his postgame comments to local media.

"We weren’t ready to play. [It’s like] pounding a square peg in a round hole here, saying they're a desperate team, and we have to match it. And [we] came out and didn't match right from the start, and we chased the game again."

There is never an excusve for "not being ready to play"

What stands out most from that quote is "chased the game again" This is an alarming early theme from this team. It's not a consistent winning recipe and Brunette knows this. A few times, including the wins over Chicago Columbus, Predators have overcome. However, that's not going to work the majority of the time against higher tier teams like Edmonton.

The Predators have plenty of time to turn this around and make the month of October an afterthought, but they're backing themselves into a corner that might be very difficult to get out of.

We keep waiting for the newcomers to work out the early rust of joining a new team and to start paying off where it counts, and that's with goals. Steven Stamkos is stuck on one goals, Jonathan Marchessault with two goals. These two superstars combined for 82 goals last season.

Last season this team needed an unprecedented 18-game point streak to save their season and qualify for the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Do we really want to make the margin for error that difficult again? Heck no.

I'm going to throw this out there right now; if this team misses the playoffs after what they did in free agency, it will be hard to look the other way from Brunette. Serious questions will arise about his job security, but again we're nowhere close to having that conversation now because there's 72 games left in the regular season.