The Predators entered the 2024-25 season with at least a couple of hopes at the center position.

They hoped veteran Ryan O’Reilly would be able to replicate his first season in Nashville, which was one of the most productive of his career.

They hoped Tommy Novak would be able to step up in a second-line role, creating goal-scoring opportunities for the likes of Steven Stamkos and Jonathan Marchessault.

Neither scenario materialized, which is part of the reason the Predators stumbled out of the gates and went on to finish with the second fewest points in franchise history.

The question of how to boost talent and depth at the center position is likely the biggest offseason challenge for Preds General Manager Barry Trotz, who is armed with three first-round picks — for trading or selecting purposes — and about $7 million in cap space, the sixth-most in the NHL.

“You look at teams in the NHL now, and a lot of teams have depth at the center position, and [more depth] would be great,” Marchessault said. “But that’s up to Barry. I know that Barry has the best intention for us and for the organization. He’s going to do everything in his power to make the team better … It’s definitely an exciting summer to see what’s going to happen for our organization.”

It seemed nothing the Predators tried last year at center resulted in consistent offense for a long period of time.

The 34-year-old O’Reilly was the best option with 53 points (21 goals and 32 assists) in 79 games, but that total represented a 23 percent drop from the 69 points he posted in 2023-24.

Novak managed 22 points — a total that included only nine assists — in 52 games before Trotz shipped him off to Pittsburgh.

Colton Sissons, who had totaled double-digit goals in each of his two previous seasons, recorded just 21 points (seven goals, 14 assists) in 72 contests before suffering an injury.

Rookie Fedor Svechkov, a 2021 first-round pick, showed some promise, but —predictably as a 22-year-old in his first NHL season — went through long dry spells en route to totaling 17 points in 52 games.

The Predators eventually resorted to using Stamkos, who had played primarily wing for the past decade in Tampa, at center in the hopes of sparking some offense.

It worked well at times, like when the Filip Forsberg-Stamkos-Marchessault combination initially put together a multi-week hot streak. But that trio eventually cooled as well, and Stamkos went back and forth between wing and center for the second half of the season.

“Obviously when [Novak] got traded, there was a hole there, a glaring hole,” Stamkos said. “I was able to step in and do my best to help that. It was an adjustment for sure. It was a different system than I had ever played in the D-zone with regards to being a center. So that took a little bit of time, too. But I enjoyed it.”

Stamkos said he would return to center again for the 2025-26 season if necessary, but offered what sounded like a diplomatic answer on his preference of position.

“I didn’t mind [playing center] at all,” Stamkos said. “I thought for me anyways, in terms of being around the puck and having the puck and generating some speed, that helps my game for sure. [But] it’s the old question of, `Are you okay playing the wing with a certain guy at center?’ Yeah, if there’s a guy that is playing really well and facilitating the puck. That obviously was a question mark for our group this year as well.”

Stamkos like Marchessault, is hopeful the team’s depth at center will be addressed this offseason.

“If I have to continue to play it, I’ll do so,” Stamkos said. “Obviously we’ll see what happens this summer. Those are obviously questions for management and coaching with regards to what they want to do with the lineup.

“But it was something that was talked about last season. It kind of reared its head a little bit this year with the depth we have at that position. We’ll see what happens.”

Predators coach Andrew Brunette hopes that for the sake of the 35-year-old Stamkos, who signed a four-year, $32 million deal with the Predators in 2024, the team will have more clarity regarding his role — and position — heading into 2025-26.

“Obviously you’d love to commit to one [position] or the other at a certain point,” Brunette said. “Again, time will dictate that and working with [Trotz], we’ll see what happens.

“We’ll try to get ahead of it a little bit this year. We kind of threw [center] on [Stamkos] kind of out of necessity, so hopefully we give him a good stretch of time to think about it and get back accustomed, and work on some of the little things I think he needs to work on in the D-zone to help him out.”