5. Goaltending
It’s officially time to talk about Juuse Saros. It might be beneficial for Brunette to not just blame these goals on “bad defense” and to have an honest conversation with Saros about what is going on.
Saros kept the Preds in the running last season with some really phenomenal games, but recently, he has been far from great, and has even had some really bad games. It is very important that Brunette gives Lankinen some playing time to see what he can do.
With the lack of depth among the forwards, general manager Barry Trotz might want to look at trading Saros in order to get another power forward that can open some scoring for the team.
We also saw a wonderful performance from young goaltender Yaroslav Askarov, who looked very comfortable and poised in his one game this season. If a goaltending trade was made, I would feel very comfortable having Lankinen as a starter and Askarov as a backup if it meant a large return on a Saros trade.
Overall, there are a lot of things that this team needs to clean up and refine in order to have a successful back half of the season, and there are definitely some changes that the front office needs to make in order for this team to regain their confidence and find ways to win hard games.