Even by preseason standards, there's no sugarcoating how horrendous Scott Wedgewood has been for the Nashville Predators in three exhibition games.
Sure, you expect some rush that has to be shaken off while joining a new team, but Wedgewood hasn't even broken the 80 save percentage mark. This would be more expected and acceptable from an undrafted rookie prospect, but certainly not a veteran goalie with 114 career NHL starts.
Wedgewood had some quality years with the Dallas Stars going back to the 2021-22 season. After coming over from the New Jersey Devils, Wedgewood posted back-to-back season at around a .912 save percentage before dipping to a .899 save percentage in the backup role to Jake Oettinger last season.
You can certainly live with those numbers from your backup goalie, but hanging out in the mid 70's is alarming whether it's preseason, regular season, rec league or playing on the frozen pond behind your house.
The Predators dropped to 2-3-0 in their preseason slate after Saturday's home loss to the Carolina Hurricanes by a final score of 5-3. The score was close until the final three minutes of the game, and Wedgewood finishes with four goals given up on just 16 shots faced.
Wedgewood has been abysmal in three preseason starts
The go-ahead goal for Carolina was scored on a tricky pass across the crease that Wedgewood had trouble locating at the other post. This is stuff that if you're locked in as a goalie, you can see it coming and anticipate the save.
Either way you slice it, Wedgewood hasn't looked great at all. He has had save percentages of .750, .733, and .739. In Saturday's loss to Carolina, Juuse Saros handed the keys over to Wedgewood in the 2nd period after making 12 saves on 12 shots.
Saros is actually perfect in the save department this preseason, making 35 saves on 35 shots in two appearances. So there's that at least, and you'd much rather see your backup goalie going through the preseason struggles over your 60-plus game starter that Saros will be.
This does give you reason for concern because the Predators are going to have to turn to Wedgewood for starts similar to how they used Kevin Lankinen. You need a quality and trustworthy backup goalie to stay near the top of the standings, and avoid you top goalie getting burnt out as the season grinds along.
In hindsight I'm sure both parties, Lankinen and the Predators front office, are wishing they could've come to an offseason agreement. But Lankinen wanted to be a starter somewhere and instead had to wait around longer than anyone really expected, and eventually he jumped on board with the Vancouver Canucks while they await the return status of Thatcher Demko.
Lankinen signed with Vancouver for just a bare-bones contract of one year at $875,000. Nowhere near what he was originally hoping for, and Nashville could've easily retained him for more than that and been satisfied. Instead they're paying Wedgewood $3 million over two years with a $1.5 million cap hit for this season.
Now being a little concerned and being full on panic mode are two very different ends of the spectrum. Goalies are streaky, and that's especially true coming out of an offseason for a backup goalie. Wedgewood could get into a groove and look fabulous in his first handful of backup starts to Saros.
The preseason performances from Wedgewood, whether they would have been strong or not, wasn't going to change too much in the overall outlook of starts between himself and Saros. Saros was always going to be the workhorse and get in the neighborhood of 60 to 65 starts regardless of Wedgewood.
My mild concern level of Wedgewood is that he's going to be a complete liability every start he gets, the full on opposite of how I felt with Lankinen owning the backup role. In fact, Lankinen basically matched Saros' numbers last year, and even outperformed Saros in Goals Saved Above Expected.
Preds don't really have a Plan B if Wedgewood ends up being unreliable
There's also no Plan B for Saros' backup if Wedgewood ends up being so bad that they can't keep throwing him in there, even in occasional backup duties on back-to-back scenarios. This team has very high aspirations to compete for a Central Division crown, get home-ice advantage and eventually hoist a Stanley Cup. Every point matters in the standings.
Also looking back on the Yaroslav Askarov trade, he's probably wishing he had the benefit of hindsight as well after being sent back to the AHL in the San Jose Sharks system. He's back to where he didn't want to be with the Predators, but context matters and it's not a full-on demotion but more due to a lingering injury that Askarov is dealing with.
Here's the worst case scenario when it comes to the Predators, and it has nothing to do with Wedgewood's preseason showings that has me saying this, but if he is indeed as bad as he's looking right now, then the Predators cut ties with him at some point this season and go backup goalie shopping at the trade deadline or through waivers.
The Predators do have AHL workhorse Matthew Murray who just joined the organization this past summer, also via the Dallas Stars system. Murray has four NHL starts under his belt and figures to get a lot of starts for the Milwaukee Admirals this season.
So yeah, while it's definitely mildly concerning to see Wedgewood struggling so badly in three preseason games, let's hope he works his way out of the funk and can be serviceable enough to take around 15 to 20 starts this season and not be a complete liability.
The preseason finale is Monday at the Tampa Bay Lightning, a makeup game due to a postponement from Hurricane Helene. I'm thinking they throw Wedgewood in there for the whole game and see if he can string together a quality three periods.
On the bright side, the Predators are going to probably be a high scoring team and will have the offensive firepower to overcome bad days at the office from their goalies.