2025-26 Nashville Predators Preview

With the draft, and free agency over with the look for the 2025-26 DCHL season is now on the go. The Predators were the team to watch at the draft, which pundits raved on how good the draft was, and in free agency they went out and shored up their defense signing Jacob Trouba, and Marcus Pettersson, along with young forward Jan Mysak.

Despite them making a few big moves like Trouba, and Pettersson the Predators are going to be in for a rough bumpy season, as they’re entering the rebuild which will take some time, but they’re on their way, its all about developing and making moves with intention and not flailing around, now that they’re committed to rebuilding they’ll be focused on the rebuild.

                Today we’ll go over their team, so here we go and taking a peek of the 2025-26 Nashville Predators.

LEADERSHIP

General Manager: Neil Burkholder

Head Coach: Lane Lambert

Captain: Jacob Trouba

Assistant Captains: Reilly Smith, Brian Dumoulin

Entering into season two of the Burkholder regime, it started out hot and was one of the better teams in the DCHL, before they fell apart before Christmas which caused the selloff, now they’ve entered into a rebuilding stage, which will take some time to say the least.

Lane Lambert is back as coach and while the team isn’t expecting a lot from Lane, the team is expecting to at least try and be competitive, and showing development of the younger players, which is going to be important.

OFFENSE

Lawson Crouse - Robby Fabbri – Nino Neiderreiter

Maxim Tsyplakov - Mark Jankowski – Reilly Smith

Ty Dellandrea - Oskar Sundqvist – Samu Tuomaala

Eduard Sale - Samuel Helenius – Jan Mysak

The offense is truly lacking firepower, it wouldn’t be surprising to see a few of the veterans shipped off in midseason, the exciting part is seeing what 2^nd round pick rookie Maxim Tsyplakov can do in a top six role, the Russian phenom was a highly regarded prospect in the draft.

Prospect wise there is some exciting names as well with Samu Tuomaala the Finnish shoot first forward will most likely settle in as a middle six forward in his career, he is a skilled and creative player who the Predators are exciting for. Another bigger name is Eduard Sale who the team picked up from Seattle this offseason who is a creative and another skilled winger who has top six potential, and getting some DCHL time will be important.

DEFENSE

Jacob Trouba – Marcus Pettersson

Nick Jensen – Ilya Lybushkin

Brian Dumoulin – Will Borgen

This is the Predators bread and butter this season, and will be known for their defense, spending their money and resources on bringing in Trouba and Pettersson for long term options on the blueline, and the franchise are hoping in a few years those two will be there as they turn the corner

Jensen and Lybushkin are solid defensive first defenseman who will be sought after at the deadline and wouldn’t be surprising to see them being on the block, along with Will Borgen.

GOALIES

Jake Allen

Dylan Garand

Jake Allen is in the twilight of his career and will be taking on the Lions share of starts this season, young goalie prospect Dylan Garand is expected to get some starts to see where he is in the organization, and to see if he has a future with Predators.

SALARY CAP

Total Salaries: 70,398,743

Cap Space: 17,601,257

Retention: 2/3 (1 spot remaining)

Cash: 54,612,860

ADMIRALS ROSTER

Forwards: Dylan Duke, Felix Unger-Sorum, Jakub Stancl

Defense: Daniil Miromanov, Artem Grushnikov, Aleksi Heimosalmi

Goalies: Talyn Boyko, Vyacheslav Peska

TOP 20 PROSPECTS

01. Konsta Helenius (Center)

02. Victor Eklund (Wing)

03. Cole Reschny (Center)

04. Logan Hensler (Defense)

05. Theo Lindstein (Defense)

06. Ryker Lee (Wing)

07. Matvei Grindin (Wing)

08. Adam Jiricek (Defense)

09. Alexander Zharovsky (Wing)

10. Milton Gastrin (Center)

11. Kurban Limatov (Defense)

12. Malcom Spence (Wing)

13. Denver Barkey (Center)

14. Sergei Ivanov (Goalie)

15. Carson Rehkopf (Wing)

16. Graycen Sawchyn (Center)

17. Jacob Rombach (Defense)

18. Cole McKinney (Center)

19. Ivan Ryabkin (Center)

20. Victor Joahnsson (Defense)

DRAFT PICKS

26: NSH 1, COL 1, ANA 1, SJS 1, ANA 2, NSH 2, PHI 2, BOS 2, 2 SJS, NSH 3, SEA 3, EDM 3, PHI 3, MTL 3, CGY 3, TB 3, NSH 4, NSH 6

27: NSH 1, NSH 2, CGY 2, NSH 3, NSH 4, NSH 5, NSH 6, NSH 7

28: NSH 1, NSH 2, NSH 3, NSH 4, NSH 5, NSH 6, NSH 7

SEASON PROJECTIONS

30-48-4