Where the bar should be realistically set for the Nashville Predators in 2025-26

As you can probably see by the headline of this article, my bar for the Nashville Predators in 2025-26 is set extremely low and nearly the polar opposite of where I was with this team in July of 2024 fresh off of signing Steven Stamkos, Jonathan Marchessault and Brady Skjei in free agency.

The Predators enter 2025-26 trying to rectify their worst season in franchise history dating back to their inaugural season of 1998-99 when they had 63 points. That team had excuses as an expansion team, but this past year's team did not.

With most of the major roster moves probably behind us, the projected starting lineup for the Predators is taking shape with still a lot to sort out in training camp.

Here's a look at what NHL.com thinks the Predators opening night lineup will look like when they take on the Columbus Blue Jackets in Nashville for the season-opener:

Sizing up the Nashville Predators projected lineup on paper

A couple interesting notes to take away from with this projected lineup for the Predators. The top-six isn't horrendous, but certainly isn't elite to hang with the top tier teams in the NHL. Fedor Svechkov is the major x-factor as the second line center, and you ask yourself is Stamkos and Marchessault can return to their pre-Nashville forms.

Overall, the Predators top-six on paper looks at-best like an 80-ish point team that misses the playoffs pretty convincingly. Michael Bunting, no offense to him, isn't a top-six winger on a legit playoff contending team.

Moving to the bottom-six, you see Luke Evangelista down at the third line. This is where I disagree with this projection. To open the season at least, the better play here is to give Evangelista his chance to shine right out of the gate. He'll be coming off his new contract with the Predators and hungry to prove himself in that role.

This moves Bunting into a third line role, where I'm much more comfortable him being at, and sharing a line with newly-acquired center Erik Haula and a position that is up for competition on the right wing. I'd stick Zachary L'Heureux there for now. That gives you a feisty and physical third line that's honestly not that bad.

The fourth line I have no qualms with Michael McCarron continuing to hold that role with Cole Smith and an open competition to see who rounds out the starting 12 forwards on opening night. The spotlight in training camp will be on fifth-overall pick Brady Martin and if he can do the unthinkable and crack this roster immediately.

For this team to outweigh my expectations and crack 90 points this season, the blueline is going to have to be there calling card. Impenetrable, physical and bruising. Make it a tall order just to enter the zone and set up on Juuse Saros. Too many times we saw teams take target practice on Saros, and Justus Annunen for that matter. It was far too inconsistent and many times the defense was way out of position with zero structure.

The only reason I'm giving the Predators a chance to increase the points output by 15 to 20 points in 2025-26 is their defense should be much improved. Nicolas Hague and Nick Perbix are upgrades in the sense that they'll make it more difficult for teams to set up and transition on the Predators.

Another reason that the Predators should at least be an 80-plus point team is I can't fathom all of the veteran player collectively having down years at the same time again. If this is even showing signs of happening again in the first 10 or so games, then Head Coach Andrew Brunette's seat will get so hot that he might just fire himself at that point.

Seriously speaking, a few of these guys at least are going to have bounce-back years. Marchessault is a guy I'm really looking to increase his goal total considerably into the 30-plus range. He had just 21 goals in his debut season with the Predators, just half of his 42-goal total with the Golden Knights the season before.

Marchessault at least splits the difference here and cracks 30 goals. I don't think that's asking for too much. Stamkos and Skjei, on the other hand, are uncertainties for me but I do think Stamkos continues to be a strong weapon on the power play and provides mentorship to the young crop of players that Barry Trotz says are about to get much more time to prove themselves.

Setting the realistic bar for the Nashville Predators in 2025-26

Now to get to why I think the Predators expectations should be limited to the 80-point tier is their lack of depth, lack of superstar offensive talent, their unproven youth of the roster and finally their lack of centers.

Depth is going to be concern for this team as soon as the unavoidable injuries start piling up. Maybe they get lucky this year and don't deal with too many catastrophic long-term injuries, but they really don't have much wiggle room if that happens.

Elite offensive talent has always plagued this franchise, and for the longest time they managed to get by in the regular season because of elite goaltending and a great blueline. They'll be leaning on that again in my estimation.

The youth of the roster, led by Svechkov possibly getting his second line center opportunity, is the hardest to predict right now. No one really knows how these unproven young talents are going to respond to finally getting bigger roles on the team.

If Svechkov seizes the opportunity and gives the Predators a second line that's cooking with Stamkos and Evangelista, then the outlook of 2025-26 suddenly gets a lot more positive. I can see this being a scenario where Svechkov gets better as the season rolls along, but there might again be some growing pains in the beginning.

This organization has a horrible track record with managing their youth and if Svehckov struggles at first, I have no reason to believe that Brunette will stick with him. He'll probably panic and turn to Haula to play second line.

Kemell is in the projected starting lineup from NHL.com, listed above, and taking a spot from Matthew Wood. Wood is in the projected starting lineup for Daily Faceoff. That could be an interesting one-on-one training camp battle to watch, because there is essentially an open slot to be determined among the starting 12 forwards for the Predators.

Finally, the most glaring weak spot for the Predators is at center. Even if Svechkov proves to be a trustworthy top-six center, you've still got depth concerns here. Ryan O'Reilly top line capabilities are long past him, but the Predators really don't have any other options. Same goes for Stamkos playing center at this advanced stage of his career. He's better on the wing.

The Predators don't have much to turn to either in the prospect pool unless they're prepared to turn to fifth-overall pick Martin quickly or take a look at 20-year-old David Edstrom who has some upside but yet to make his NHL debut.

Edstrom was drafted by the Golden Knights 32nd-overall in the 2023 NHL Draft and acquired by Nashville in the trade nearly one year ago that sent Yaroslav Askarov to the San Jose Sharks.

To put it bluntly, the Predators have very few options for primary centers unless they have another big move up their sleeve through a trade.

Also, another big question mark to consider is the health of Roman Josi. Something else no one really knows what to expect. Josi and the team insist he'll be 100 percent ready for the upcoming season after dealing with a really scary diagnosis involving the brain.

It absolutely goes without saying that the Predators desperately need their captain back and ready to drive the offense again in 2025-26. It will be a major blow to this team's chances to bounce back and avoid being a lottery team again if Josi can't play consistent top pairing minutes at a high level.

So the negatives on this roster unfortunately outweigh the minor upgrades the team has made this offseason enough to be anything more than a team in the mid-80s in points. I can even see them sticking around in the wildcard race into February, but eventually the grind of the season is going to wear them down enough to leave them out of the postseason for a second-straight year.

Of course there are always outliers and teams that do surprisingly better than expected, and for the Predators to flip the script and be one of those NHL darlings again, they need a lot to break their way at the same time.