Jonathan Marchessault remains on the injury shelf for the Nashville Predators as the trade speculations continue to loom. He hasn't played in nearly a month and only appeared in 28 games all season.
The Predators keep finding ways to win, and beat impressive opponents, in Marchessault's absence including the most recent win over the Edmonton Oilers on Tuesday.
Justin Barron will come back into the #Preds lineup tonight with Nic Hague out due to illness. Jonathan Marchessault, who has been placed on IR, remains day-to-day with a lower-body injury; this gives the team some roster flexibility ahead of their trip out west this weekend --> https://t.co/RtDjD6qieE
— Brooks Bratten (@brooksbratten) January 14, 2026
Marchessault is currently on injured reserve but considered "day-to-day". It has made room for Tyson Jost to get some extra starts, and also for rookie Reid Schaefer to stay in the starting lineup conssitently.
The Nashville Predators will have a hard time finding space for Marchessault once he's ready to return, but also they need him playing to boost his trade value
If and when Marchessault returns, it's the assumption that Jost would probably be moved out. However, we have no idea exactly what is going on behind the scenes to possibly move Marchessault and not play him now out of caution to keep him from further nagging whatever injury he is nursing. That is just speculation on my part.
Marchessault just hasn't been able to gain the same traction and chemistry consistently here like Steven Stamkos had managed to do. To his defense, injuries can also slow down your momentum when trying to build something with a struggling team.
With Marchessault not out there trying to boost his season and his trade value, it going to only make it harder for Predators GM Barry Trotz to get a team willing to take on his $5.5 million per year contract that still has three more years after this one for a guy who just turned 35.
Trotz doesn't seem willing to retain anymore salary to move some of these bigger contracts, so the only path forward for Marchessault is to hopefully get back healthy and find a spark with this Predators team that is suddenly winning on a consistent basis without him.
What makes it even more complicated is I'm not so confident in where to place him in the lineup when he does get healthy. I love the chemistry being shown between Stamkos, Erik Haula and Michael Bunting. I don't want to see that line broken up.
If you pull Jost out, who last night played with Fedor Svechkov and Matthew Wood, then that is really the only place I can see Marchessault going. Kind of an odd line combination that I'm not sure will be a good fit.
You're definitely not going to throw Marchessault on the top line and take off Luke Evangelista, and he's not a fit on the fourth line either with Schaefer playing so well as a rookie.
Everything just seems to be clicking for this team, and you don't want to mess with that. Suddenly, Marchessault just feels like the odd man out on a surging Nashville Predators team. Fair or not.