Better luck next year: What happened with the Nashville Predators?

Seriously, what happened here?

Welcome back to Better Luck Next Year, a series that will focus on each team as they get eliminated from Stanley Cup Playoff contention and the Stanley Cup Playoffs. What went wrong, why it went wrong, what (if anything) went right, and what is next. We continue today with the next team to be eliminated from Stanley Cup Playoff contention: The Nashville Predators.

As one of the great fictional sports prognosticators of our time, Smooth Jimmy Apollo, once said: When you’re right 52 percent of the time, you’re wrong 48 percent of the time.

There were some preseason predictions that I got right. There were others that I got wrong. And brother, let me tell you, I was wrong about the Nashville Predators.

I not only thought this was going to be a playoff team, I thought it had a decent chance to come out of the Western Conference.

Maybe I bought into the hype of their offseason moves.

Maybe I overrated the team they were a year ago.

Maybe I ignored the lack of quality scoring depth.

But I don’t think it was an overly crazy thought at the time. They were a playoff team in 2023-24, and a pretty good one. Their 5-on-5 metrics were mostly tremendous across the board, they pushed play, they controlled possession and they made the playoffs despite getting a down year from Juuse Saros in goal.

Then they went into the summer and added top-line finishers in Steven Stamkos and Jonathan Marchessault to a team that lacked high-end finishers. Adding two guys coming off 40-goal seasons to a good possession-driving team, and hopefully getting a bounce back year from Saros in net, seemed like a pretty good recipe for a fringe Stanley Cup contender.

Instead, they lost the first five games of the season, never really figured things out, and are now the third team to be eliminated from playoff contention and own one of the worst records in the league. It is hard to imagine a bigger disappointment this season.

Instead of competing for a championship, the Predators are at the bottom of the league standings, have a team where most of its top players are on the wrong side of 30 (and they added another soon-to-be 30-year-old player in Michael Bunting just before the trade deadline), and have a lot of them locked into long-term deals.

It is suddenly a very depressing situation.

What went right this season

From an individual standpoint, there was not much.

From a team standpoint, there is even less.

In both cases each positive is immediately greeted by a negative.

Let’s talk about it.