Nashville Predators are improved, but they still have flaws going into 2024-25

The Nashville Predators made some serious summer moves. After last season's return to the Stanley Cup Playoffs, where they pushed Vancouver as far as they could, the Predators decided to go all in by acquiring Steven Stamkos and Jonathan Marchessault, among others. 

Could those players lift Nashville over the top or will it demise their short-term future? Let‘s look deeper into these new signings and look at the bigger picture of what to expect from Nashville this upcoming season.

The Nashville Predators were a rollercoaster in 2023-24

 It was a rollercoaster season for the Predators under the first year of Head Coach Andrew Brunette. They hovered outside looking into the playoffs for the better part of the season. After their 9-2 loss to the Dallas Stars, they gathered together and got on an improbable hot streak. Since that game, they went 20-5-3 to finish the season.

In the first round against the Canucks is was low-scoring and hard fought in six games. It was a really competitive series. In Game 4, when the Predators were trailing 2-1 in the series, they had a two-goal lead with less then three minutes left, but Vancouver managed to come back and win the game. Overall, last four games of the series were decided by one goal.

Last year, they were in the middle of the pack- both offensively and defensively. Their core guys had a good season. Filip Forsberg finished with 94, Roman Josi had 85 and Gustav Nyquist with 75 points. They are in a win now mode. That‘s why they went and added Marchessault and Stamkos, along with Brady Skjei for their defense and Scott Wedgewood for their backup goalie position to Juuse Saros.

On paper, those moves look legit, but how will they perform on the ice in 2024-25?

Both of Stamkos and Marchessault are getting up there in age. Stamkos will be 35 and Marchessault 34. But they had good seasons last year, so maybe they‘ll have one or two seasons under their sleeve left of elite levels of play.

Can Stamkos translate his Tampa Bay success to Nashville?

What is more interesting is how they'll fit on the ice. When Stamkos started to play alongside Kucherov and Palat, Tampa Bay exploded. For a couple of years, nobody could stop them.

For example, in 2022 Eastern Conference Finals against the New York Rangers, Tampa Bay was in serious trouble after the first two games. But then they decided to put above mentioned trio together.

 In 25 minutes together after the start of Game 3 that year, the Lightning owned a 3-0 goals advantage with that trio on the ice, while also controlling more than 65% of the total shot attempts, 77% of the expected goals, 70% of the scoring chances, and 71% of the high-danger chances. Those two games were also Tampa Bay’s best games in the series as a team in terms of controlling the pace of play.

Stamkos in his final year with Tampa Bay before being dealt to Nashville spent most of his time with Brayden Point at center.

When you have Nikita Kucherov on your line, he makes your life that much easier, because he is an elite creator. It’s debatable, but he’s arguably the best passer in the league. Stamkos scored  countless goals from that left side after Kuch’s assists. Nashville doesn’t have that kind of creator.

It will be interesting to see if Brunette will try to put Forsberg and Stamkos on one line. Last season, the top line of Forsberg, O’Reilly and Nyquist were pretty solid. Will they try to mix it up? Personally, I wouldn’t do that, because he brings balance to that line.

But Stamkos will probably be united with Marchessault. They briefly played together in Tampa Bay and recently, Marchessault expressed excitement of the possibility playing alongside Stamkos. If they can stay healthy, they will cause a lot damage.

In theory, the Predators style of play should fit them pretty well. But they’re older players and I don’t know if they can play at the high pace for prolonged stretches of the season.

Preds Power Play should be better, but depth is a concern

Where Nashville will improve is their power play situations. They could put together Forsberg, Stamkos, Marchessault, O’Reilly and Josi on the top unit. That amount of talent and scoring ability should lift them way higher than where they finished among power play in the NHL last season, which was 16th. They could possibly hover around top-5.

But they have some flaws. Tommy Novak, their second line center, struggles with face-offs. He won 42% of them. It’s hard to push the puck or start the break when you can’t win those face-offs.

Knowing that Stamkos has played alongside Point, who hovered around 50% for majority of his career, or Marchessault, who played alongside Eichel,  they probably will feel the difference. Novak is a lesser player compared to above mentioned centers and it’ll be interesting to see, how those two wings will fair alongside Novak. Maybe Stamkos and Marchessault will make him better.

They still lack of depth. They have good first two lines, but after that it drops pretty significantly. If they could stay healthy, then it shouldn’t be an issue, but it’s a long season and they have older roster.

Also, they lack size on their defensive line. They could really use Tyler Myers or Logan Stanley type defender. Even though “Predators” style doesn’t  fit those type of players particularly well, but in the playoffs, when the game slows, they could really use one of those guys.

Lastly, they have older roster. Last year, their core guys stayed relatively healthy. Can they do it again?

Nashville improved.  There’s little doubt about it. But there are some serious questions about their abilities to win it all. If all clicks, they can reach the finals or even win their first Stanley Cup. But that window is really small. They have one or two years, at best, to achieve something significant with this current core of players that they have right now.