The Predators could spend their way out of the basement?
The Nashville Predators could not have imagined the 2024-25 NHL season going like it did.
After pushing the Vancouver Canucks in the first round of the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs, the Predators invested heavily in free agency, signing Steven Stamkos, Brady Skjei, Jonathan Marchessault, and others in hopes of becoming a Stanley Cup contender.
Instead, they struggled through the season, amassing just 68 points, before finishing 30th in the league. After the Draft Lottery, they hold the fourth overall pick in the upcoming NHL Draft.
On Friday’s episode of Daily Faceoff Live, Tyler Yaremchuk and Frank Seravalli looked at how the Predators may be able to find their way back into contention.
Yaremchuk: We’re already on the team that committed north of $108 million in unrestricted free agency last summer, Steven Stamkos, with Brady Skjei and Jonathan Marchessault, so it was supposed to be a Nashville Predators team that was going to fly into the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Instead, they were a lottery team.
When you look at things from Barry Trotz’s perspective as the GM, he’s got three first-round picks in this upcoming NHL Draft, $17 million in cap space, and 11 forwards, eight defensemen, and two goalies under contract. Is it unrealistic to think the Predators might just try to spend their way out of this again?
Seravalli: Look, I think some drastic changes are likely coming. I think we’re going to see at least one guy that’s part of this core be moved off this team. With three first-round picks, I wouldn’t be shocked to see them use one of them to try and create more cap space and flexibility by moving out one of those players and attaching a first-round pick to do it.
I think drastic is what’s needed…Nashville finished third from the bottom; they’re picking fourth after dropping a spot. It’s a year that I didn’t see coming because I at least bought into their thought process, which was: ‘we’re going to go out and spend all this money on key free agents and we’re going to try and vault ourselves into contender status this year. Some of these contracts have some significant term, and it’s going to be problematic for us later, but at least for these first two to three years, if we can be in that conversation and really make a dent, and go on a deep playoff run, it will all end up being worth it.’
But then the wheels fell off. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a team have their confidence crater like the Nashville Predators did this season. They couldn’t score. It seemed like the guys didn’t want to be there. Their culture, their environment, everything about it, it was a drain on everyone’s personality, and that’s the part that I think they have to figure out, from a cultural perspective, who to pluck out from this group and send them on their merry way to a place where the grass is greener, because you’re not going to win if you haven’t solved that issue.
You can catch the rest of the Predators segment and the remainder of Friday’s episode here…