The Nashville Predators have long ignored the idea of committing to a rebuild, and it's beginning to catch up to them.
After emptying their wallets on the 2024 free agency class, the Predators hoped to be a Stanley Cup contender for the first time in nearly a decade. Those wishes weren't fulfilled as the team plunged to the bottom of the standings that year. While they did compete for a playoff spot this past season, they didn't find enough success to secure it.
Countless offseasons of acquiring veterans have set this team back years in the standings. One might think just to pull the plug and start from scratch; however, rebuilding at this stage will prove to be detrimental. The way this team is constructed today makes a rebuild almost impossible to commit to. It's not a matter of how fast we can end the pain, it's a matter of what we can do to fix it in the meantime.
Nashville has a wide selection of prospects to develop; why tank for more?
The whole idea of tanking is centered around the chance of securing a top-end draft pick at the expense of trading off high value pieces. When taking a look at the Predators, what would be high value pieces are locked behind extensive trade clauses and expensive contracts. Trading just one of these players proved to be a difficult this season, so it's reasonable to believe that it'll continue to be so in the future.
Beyond the veterans lies the young core. Guys like Luke Evangelista, Matthew Wood and Brady Martin have some of the highest avaiable trade value the team has to offer. However, it'll be incredibly dumbfounding to trade off either of them with the way they're shaping out to be. The future relies on prospect development and trading them away just goes against that ideal.
The names continue past those three. Yegor Surin, Teddy Stiga, Jack Ivankovic, Tanner Molendyk and Cameron Reid just to name some. If these guys are given the adequate time to develop, we could see big time progression in not only our prospects but the team as a whole.
This is the exact reason why Nashville is stuck where they're at; they're shrouded in bad contracts but have enough young talent to make up for it.
Management learned its lesson from the David Poile administration. To develop a prospect means to create a prospect-friendly environment. When Barry Trotz took over as General Manager, he was handed a team that provided little wiggle room for the youngsters to succeed. Fast forward to today and Trotz provided the youth a fair chance to succeed, as seen with Wood and Evangelista.
The team should still consider selling off veterans such as Jonathan Marchessault and Ryan O'Reilly in the near future. This would allow the retention of serious draft capital and another decent prospect or two. We got a stacked draft upcoming and it's important Preds scouts pay serious attention to every player. With Nashville selecting around the top 10, it'll still have the opportunity to take home a game changer.
A retool is the most realistic option for the Nashville Predators. Sell the pieces you can but immediately replace them with younger pieces that can play big minutes. Fix up the bottom six by pulling in prospects from within the system. It'll be important to retain a few impactful veteran pieces like Filip Forsberg and Roman Josi to provide both skill and leadership to the changing core.
A rebuild isn't needed. What we need is a retool that is orientated around working with what we have and not spending big money on names. If we proceed with this process, we could expect the team to return to playoff contention in as little as a season.
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