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32 in (roughly) 32 Season Preview: Nashville Predators

A decent team, but will that be enough for the Predators to make the playoffs from the Central division?

9/19/2022 • Gage Westerik

Team: Nashville Predators

GM: Mathieu Tessier

Power Ranking Placement: 22/32 in league, 7/8 in division, 13/16 in conference

Significant Additions:

Brady Tkachuk, C/W - 85 OV

John Klingberg, D - 83 OV

Frederick Gaudreau, C/W - 82 OV

Ilya Lyubushkin, D - 78 OV

Significant Subtractions:

Steven Stamkos, C/W - 92 OV

Tom Wilson, C/W - 85 OV

Wyatt Johnson, C/W - Prospect

Offseason grade: C+

I’m a fan of bringing in Tkachuk, who is still a very young player who will be a core player of the Preds for years to come. Acquiring Tkachuk comes at the cost of Wyatt Johnson, who just had a fantastic year, and a first round pick. It’s essentially trading risk for certainty, so I think it’s a fair trade. I also like the addition of Klingberg, and it adds to their D core, which was the weakness. I do think they could have gotten a little extra in return for Wilson though, maybe a mid-to-late round pick of some kind, but it’s not really that bad. Losing Stamkos does hurt quite a bit, and that did lower the score of their off-season a good deal, however there wasn’t a very high chance that Nashville was going to be able to compete with the offers he was given. They were able to add Frederick Gaudreau who should be a great fit on the second line, but overall, Nashville lost more than they added this off-season. They have a bit of cap space to work with so it’ll be interesting to see if they make any other additions to their roster before the season starts, but I think there’s a glaring issue that was not addressed by the Preds, and that would be depth. They have an extraordinarily stacked top line, but the level of scoring they have falls off a cliff after that.

Projected Lineup:

Marner - B. Tkachuk - J. Gaudreau

Fabbri - F. Gaudreau - Keller

Milano - Jankowski - Drouin

Reichel - Foudy - Dellandrea

Klingberg - Pulock

Dumba - Lauzon

Lyubushkin - Koekkoek

Bobrovsky

Stolarz

Quote from the GM:

I had a chance to speak with GM Mathieu Tessier regarding how he feels going into the 2022-23 season. He told me that he’s “trying to be a contender, but that’s a long shot unless I’m able to make some moves but I’m not super familiar with the sim yet. I’m trying to move out some LW and improve at RW, C, and D.”

Season Expectations: Competitive

The Nashville Predators are in a very interesting position, in that, they definitely could sneak into a playoff spot. I can’t say my expectations for them are to rebuild, seeing as they’re much better than that. Some solid forwards, an okay top 4, good goaltending, but despite being a decent team with potential, there are still 6 teams in the central division that are better than them. So if Nashville wants to make the playoffs this year, they’re going to have to play to the absolute best of their ability night in, night out. And who knows, maybe the sim favours them and puts them in a good position for success, but sheerly looking at the rosters on paper, Nashville likely won’t be a playoff team this year as there is simply too many talented teams in the Central, as well as the Western conference in general.

In the next entry, we’ll be covering the New Jersey Devils. Thank you for reading, and have a wonderful day!

Previous entries:

Anaheim Ducks: https://dchl.ca/articles/senators/32-in-roughly-32-season-preview-anaheim-ducks

Arizona Coyotes: https://dchl.ca/articles/senators/32-in-roughly-32-sesaon-preview-arizona-coyotes

Boston Bruins: https://dchl.ca/articles/senators/32-in-roughly-32-season-preview-boston-bruins

Buffalo Sabres: https://dchl.ca/articles/senators/32-in-roughly-32-season-preview-buffalo-sabres

Calgary Flames: https://dchl.ca/articles/senators/32-in-roughly-32-season-preview-calgary-flames

Carolina Hurricanes: https://dchl.ca/articles/senators/32-in-roughly-32-season-preview-carolina-hurricanes

Chicago Blackhawks: https://dchl.ca/articles/senators/32-in-roughly-32-season-preview-chicago-blackhawks

Colorado Avalanche: https://dchl.ca/articles/league/32-in-roughly-32-season-preview-colorado-avalanche

Columbus Blue Jackets:

https://dchl.ca/articles/senators/32-in-roughly-32-season-preview-columbus-blue-jackets