The Nashville Predators prospect pool has gained the reputation among scouts of being top-heavy at the moment with not a lot of depth.
The prospect pool took a hit with the Yaroslav Askarov trade, and have recently seen the graduations of Fedor Svechkov and Zachary L'Heureux to the big leagues. So now it's time to reload the pool, and the Predators do have five picks in the first two rounds of the 2025 NHL Entry Draft, including the 5th overall pick.
As the Predators enter a retool phase and look to get younger, all eyes will be on the top tier of prospects in the system and how soon they'll be ready for NHL minutes.
Last season we saw six prospects make their NHL debuts for the Predators; Svechkov, L'Heureux, Joakim Kemell, Matthew Wood, Ozzy Wiesblatt and Ryan Ufko. Svechkov and L'Heureux appear to be locks to be in the starting lineup next season, but the others have more to prove before being ready for regular NHL starting minutes.
McKeen's Hockey who puts out in depth scouting reports on prospects ranks the Nashville Predators 17th out of 32 teams, suggesting the prospect pool has taken a dip downward in the last couple years.
A pretty big drop in their rankings due to trading away Askarov for center David Edstrom and goalie Magnus Chrona. To be fair, we can't really grade this trade yet, and won't be able to for a while, until the Predators make their 2025 first round pick they got in return for Askarov on top of the other two prospects.
This additional first round pick acquired in the Askarov trade is the 26th-overall pick.
So with that laid all out there, here are my top-5 prospects that have the most superstar potential in the NHL one day down the road.