Nashville Predators 2025-26 NHL Season Preview | The Steve Dangle Podcast

Nashville Predators 2025-26 NHL Season Preview | The Steve Dangle Podcast

Barry Trotz uh slightly said to reporters when camp opened, “We’ve proven uh the experts wrong two seasons in a row. Two years ago, they wanted an unbelievable magical winning streak after cancelling the U2 concert uh at the Sphere in Vegas.” Uh surprisingly enough, that was not repeatable. Uh but everybody thought, hey, this is still a pretty good team and they played great defense in the first round against Vancouver. If they added, I don’t know, Steven Stamos and Jonathan Marshall. Jonathan Marshall, they must be able to score. They couldn’t and they were not good last year. 66 points, only five points up on the lowly Chicago Blackhawks and more than 20 be 20 points behind the sixth place Utah hockey club, now the Mammoth. So odds makers at Bet MGM have them at 86 and a half uh over or under. So, that’s a that’s a dramatic improvement and still not enough to get them really anywhere close to the playoffs. Uh, so the over, by the way, if you take the over, it’s a 191. If you take the under, it’s a 183. Where do you have them? Over or under? Here’s how I saw this video going. I was going to have them in not a good place in the Central Division, but I was going to give them the over because I think they’ll be better than they were. The plus the the overunder set at what? 86 and a half. That is under. What the? That’s a 20 point improvement. That’s really hard to do. Yeah, that’s incredibly hard to do. Jesse, as good as Zach Zachary Laroo is, I don’t think he can drag this team to that number. So, I’m going to go under. Who’s his agent? Noted Alan Wal. Yeah, that’s right. All right. Yeah. Six is sorry. 20 point a 20 point swing in any season is crazy. Now, Nashville was able to do that last year. Yeah. Just the wrong way. They did a 30 point swing actually. Um, so okay, and that and that has to be the question. Are they are the Predators more what they were two years ago or more what they were last year? Let’s let’s talk about some of the additions. Remember Brady Sheay joined them last year. They now have Nicholas Heg that they signed away from the Vegas Golden Knights at 5.5 million bucks. That deal was like wo to a lot of people. Nick Perix is there, Justin Baron, and obviously you got Roman Yosi. Um, starting on the defense, which has always been strong. Roman Yosi uh led defense core. You can’t hate that. Um, but the question is against Colorado, Winnipeg, Dallas, and and I’ll even put throw Minnesota in there. Is that is that group enough? Uh, I think it’s a little lacking. Yes. Like Nick Perick is okay. Like, it’s nothing. I’m not getting excited. Roman Yosi is stud five-star top level defenseman, but someone’s going to play with him and they’re going to look real good doing it. Totally. It’s just it’s a lot of All right. That’s that’s all right outside of Yosi. And I think that’s what it was last season. So, you’re expecting more from guys like Hey and Shay. And the addition of Shay like going into last season I thought was going to be like it was going to change their core entirely. I think we all did. And it didn’t play out like that. So, there’s a possibility here that it does play out how we thought it was going into last season, but we’ll see. There is there is also the the pres sort of downplayed it and said he should be okay, but uh there is a health issue with with Roman Yosi and I forget exactly what it was. Uh he’s also 35 now. Yeah, it really Yeah, that’s what I said when I looked at it, too. 35 years old. I know. And you look at Brady Shay, he’s salt and pepper god. Uh very handsome. Oh, thank goodness we’re talking about the PR so we can talk about that. Not everyone can do it. He pulls it off. You pull it off. Damn. Sexy as hell. Brady Shay’s points. By the way, you know, it’s funny. Carolina is not a team known for players racking up a lot of individual good stats. That’s why a lot of players sometimes don’t want to play there. Uh Brady Shay had 47 points in 80 games before going to free agency and then fell to 33. How important, Jesse? You mentioned it, but how important is that jump back up into the 40point range for him? Yeah. And just to to fill in the gap what Steve was thinking about, he was diagnosed with uh POTS in in June of this uh past season. So then he’s been in he’s been recovering from that and now he should be be good. Should be good. Yeah. Um I mean that’s that’s a huge huge deal. Yes, it it is a huge deal. It was one of those ones where uh I was like this is enormous, right? Like why aren’t we all talking about this? Yeah. They had issued a statement back in June because it was revealed when he uh had a concussion, I believe. Yeah. And by the way, for anybody that doesn’t know what POTS is, the the symptoms are fast heart rate, dizziness, and fatigue from lying down to standing up. Yeah. So you sometimes you faint. So it was that it’s that time of year where like so much is going on. It’s it’s okay. It’s fine that if you missed it and forgot it like Yeah. So this is it’s it’s question marks all over that decor if yeah ideally like I man I don’t know the first thing about pots. So like ideally it’s not a big deal for him um or something that you know can be managed by the team and their medical staff and everything but you know you mentioned Brady Shay like kind of need him to step into that role then you you could become important at work very fast. Um same with Pervikame behind him on the right side. I became important at work and it’s ruining my life. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. You become important very fast. Now, Jussi Soros going into the first year of his big 8-year extension that he signed, which you know, basically made Yaruslav Ascarov go, “Okay, I’m going to get a trade now.” Um, and now they don’t really have a backup. Well, they’ve got Eustus Anin. Uh, uh, what do we think of the goalending tandem? I feel like UC Sos is going to have to play a lot of games. He’s going to have to play a lot of games. And like Aninan uh I believed in a lot before last season, so hopefully there’s there’s a bounce back for him, but forget Anin. Like the pres will go as far as Jussi Sorrows can take them. And he’s been a world beater in the past. And even though it’s unfair to him, he just wasn’t. Yeah, he was an 896 goalie. And you know, it’s hard to have a plus uh an over 900 save percentage when the team in front of you is bad. But uh unfortunately we need you to beat the world on a lot of nights and that is also what the money is for. Yeah. Sorrowos was good for seven straight years. He had a an above a 914 save percentage all seven of seasons. And then the last two years he’s been 9006 and then 896. It’s in there. He’s proven he is that guy. But the defense and everything needs to get back to that stand. Even 9006 it like with the the way scoring is going. Mhm. I mean to to go from an 896 to a 9006 I think is actually enormous. So even if he was able to get back to that level from a couple years ago, I think the president’s more competitive. That was their playoff year like the Vancouver year before. So I’d love to know what he was before that run. Yeah. Like what what was Sorrowos preyou2 and then postyou2? Like post2 he was like a 950 in particular. Oh yeah. Like Yeah. So like it’s in there. So you’re hoping you’re betting on that like it’s not gone away forever. Right. Right. Um okay. Uh now let’s talk a little bit about that forward group that really could not put the puck in the net the way they needed to last year. And I’m looking at this group and it to me I hate to say it guys but it again unless you see massive bouncebacks from guys like Stampos and Marsha. So looking a little thin again. Forsber, O’Reilly and uh Matthew Wood, not Mileswood. Uh Keml, Fetchov, Stampos, Bunting, Holla, Marsheso, Smith, McCarron, Zachary Laru. They don’t even have the good wood. Not even They don’t have the good wood. He’s not bad wood. He’s young wood. He’s young wood. They got young wood. Yeah. Come on. I it it seems you know what’s crazy is that it seems like center’s their weakest position at at forward and yet they got rid of Thomasino Sizens and another center and I can’t uh there was one more guy uh Nosk. Yeah. And they don’t have evangelista signed. Yes. And I did get confirmation recently from several people in my Instagram DMs. Honista Evangelista Pison. He’s a he’s Italian. He’s Italian. I love it. Um he is and related to Brendan Shanahan. Oh, that’s cool. Yes. Okay. Mimical connection. So, I mean, yeah, like they’re going to have to defend their way to wins here. This is the part of the lineup that’s the most lacking. You look at it and it’s very underwhelming. We thought the additions of Marshes and Stamos would have really changed the entire picture of this team and it didn’t. And they still have giant holes. I mean, unless Fetchgov is completely insane, like what is what is your group of centers? That’s what I’m trying to And you know, they they gave Vegas a like a pretty good one in Colton. Yeah. And like why like why they sent out Lozison and Sizzins to bring back Hey, to bring in Hey, sorry. And like is that I don’t even think that’s what they needed. No. At the time like right now it’s I don’t trust Barry Trot. I think is what this thing if he was a coach for your team, you’d love him. But GM, I’m not so sure. You’re right. It’s it’s not everyone is good at everything. And giving him the reigns, I mean, you’re taking over for David Pille. I I don’t know. I listen, if they had a bounceback, I honestly wouldn’t be overly shocked because this is just sort of what the Predators do, but it’s a tough tough division. I don’t see it. And you know what? Most of the strength comes down the wing, guys. And you’re hoping for bouncebacks from a Michael Bunting who only had 29 points last year in Marsh. So Stamos. Yeah, they’ll be fine. But there’s no play driving center. They could have had um Thomas Novak like who they sent out for Bunt. Tommy Novak. Tommy Novak. I said no. I don’t know. It’s probably like So like there’s there’s somebody on a cheaper contract. He could have kept around. Like I don’t I don’t under I don’t I have zero faith in any of the decisions he’s made. So I don’t know. That’s how I I think this is the part of the lineup where they struggle the most. and all they’ve done is trying to shuffle the deck chairs on the deck and and nothing’s kind of worked. Yeah, it’s okay. You just call up every team and ask them for their most plentiful asset. Top six centers. You’re you’re in trouble. I You know what? The more I think about it, the more I’m like, “Wow, that under is looking awfully appealing.” Okay, so where do you have the Nashville Predators finishing this year in the division, guys? I think they’ll be better than last year because I mean it’d be hard not to be. Uh but still it’s such a good division. Seventh. I have them seventh as well. They’re not better than Utah or St. Louis or Minnesota or the top three. They have to be better than Chicago. Otherwise, Barry Trotz is no longer running this team. So, they’re finishing in the 70 points area for me. But that’s seventh. Same spot. Seven. My one demand of Nashville is they remain entertaining as hell to cover.

Steve Dangle, Adam Wylde, and Jesse Blake preview the upcoming season for the Nashville Predators and predict where they will finish in the Central Division.

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