The Predators went into this season hoping their dismal 2024-25 campaign was but a one-off, rationalizing that the team couldn’t possibly struggle in as many areas as it did a year ago.

So far, however, the 2025-26 edition of the Predators looks depressingly similar to the one that finished last season with the third worst record in the NHL, 28 points out of the playoff picture.

The Preds’ 5-2 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning on Tuesday at Bridgestone Arena marked the eighth time in 11 contests this season that Nashville (4-5-2) had been held to two or fewer goals.

If that phrasing sounds familiar, it should, as Nashville was held to two or fewer goals in 44 of its 82 games last season. The Preds are averaging 2.45 goals per contest, which ranks 30th in the NHL and is even less than the figure the 2024-25 team averaged (2.59).

“Obviously you’d like to score more goals,” Preds coach Andrew Brunette said. “But there’s some things we didn’t do [against Tampa] to give us a chance to score goals. That’s a big thing for our group. We have to clean it up and be a little better [bringing the puck out of the Nashville zone].”

The Preds, understanding they weren’t going to fill the net with pucks this season, made an offseason commitment to better defense, figuring that defending would be the best way to at least keep games close.

But aside from goalie Juuse Saros posting slightly better goals against figures so far this season, there’s little bottom-line evidence that the Preds are markedly better on defense either.

Nashville ranks 23rd in goals allowed (3.36) through 11 games, which is about the same mark as last season (3.34), when the Predators finished 27th in the NHL.

One consistent problem for the Predators, as evidenced by the loss to the Lightning, is that instead of being the more aggressive team — and pressuring opponents on the forecheck — Nashville is all too often the team under pressure, coughing up turnovers and failing to execute breakouts while getting forechecked.

The fact that captain Roman Josi is week-to-week with an upper-body injury and that defenseman Adam Wilsby left Tuesday’s contest with a lower-body injury won’t help the Preds at all when it comes to moving the puck out of the defensive zone.

“I just didn’t think we were sharp back there [in the defensive zone],” Brunette said of the loss to Tampa. “I thought we were really slow twitch. I thought we were slow going back. We made soft puck plays. We just fed into what they were trying to do. They’re quick and they closed on us, and we just didn’t outwill them in certain areas.

“And our forwards didn’t help. When we did get pucks, we were not helping our D out. So it came wave after wave, which happens when we’re not on our game … They kind of did it to us the whole second period and played kind of a half-ice game [in our own end].”

When the Predators do manage to spend time in the offensive zone this season, they’re not exactly picking open corners against opposing netminders. Nashville’s team shooting percentage of 9.2 percent ranks 28th in the league, a slight uptick from the number of last year, when the Preds were dead last in shooting percentage at 8.8 percent.

A decent power play would be a wonderful lifeline for the Predators in these low-scoring times, but Nashville has scored on just 4-of-34 man-advantage opportunities, an 11.8 percent success rate that ranks 30th in the league.

A year ago, the Preds finished 18th on the power play at 21.8 percent.

The Predators can be thankful only that the teams’ penalty-killing unit is one of the best in the league, succeeding at a 90 percent rate.

But the penalty killers are being called upon too often.

Nashville has taken 49 penalties already this season, tied for sixth most in the NHL.

It’s a figure that is — stop me if you’ve heard this too many times — much like last year’s, when the Preds finished with the fifth-most penalties in the NHL.

The NHL’s 82-game marathon of a season is still in the relatively early stages, so perhaps the Predators will find a way out of their all-round funk.

But after seeing so many similarities between last season and the present one, how many fans are optimistic that will happen?