Sure, it’s not an 18-game point streak, but the Nashville Predators have found a major spark to their season and sit at a surprising record of 16-16-4 for 36 points and just three points back of the wildcard.

At their lowest point of the season, just a month ago on November 24, the Predators were buried at a 6-12-4 record for 16 points and coming off an embarassing 8-3 home loss to the Florida Panthers. Everything has completely turned around for the Predators since then.

Springboarding the Predators into the Christmas break is their 3-2 win over one of the NHL’s hottest teams, the Minnesota Wild. A road win in a tough environment, and yet another game-winning overtime goal for Steven Stamkos.

Stamkos has an incredible six game-winning goals for Nashville this season, which leads the NHL all by himself. His teammate, Ryan O’Reilly, is tied for second-most game-winners this season with five.

So let’s do some reflecting on where the Predators were at the holiday break last season, and if we can finally admit that this year’s team has shown a lot of progress under embattled Head Coach Andrew Brunette. A guy most of the fans wanted fired just a few weeks ago, and some probably still do.

The Nashville Predators are playing with more chemistry and connectivity than they ever showed last season

The Predators actually snagged a back-to-back wins before Christmas last season, but it only brought their season record to 11-17-7 for 29 points. That’s seven points behind this year’s team.

After the Christmas break, the Predators would lose three more in a row and then grab a five-game winning streak. But the hole they dug themselves was already too deep to climb their way out of after that by following up with another six-game losing streak. The nail in the coffin on the 2024-25 season came in late January and into February.

This year’s team is shaping up to stick around in the wildcard race much deeper into February and leading up to the trade deadline. It will make GM Barry Trotz’s strategy on who to trade that much more difficult if the team is competing for a wildcard spot at that time.

There’s some reason to believe that the Predators are going to keep this interesting when you look at some of the standings projection models for the remainder of the season. Dom Luszczyszyn, NHL writer who covers analytics for The Athletic, put out his rest-of-season strength of schedule for every team and the Predators have one of the “easier” ones left.

Strength of schedule pic.twitter.com/fJdoSTiGeE

— dom 📈 (@domluszczyszyn) December 24, 2025

Despite one of the weaker strength of schedules left in the NHL, Dom’s projected standings still don’t have much confidence in the Predators claiming a playoff spot. His projection is the Predators finish at about 81 points, which would be a 13-point improvement of last season, but not enough to make Predators fans pleased. If anythign, that would just enrage them even more because the lottery odds will be worse.

What makes this year’s playoff race much more interesting as it pertains to the Predators is that the Western Conference looks very top heavy. You’ve got the three tops teams in the Central Division completely running away from the rest of the pack.

The gap between the Utah Mammoth, one of the wildcard teams, and the third-place Minnesota Wild is 11 points. But the Mammoth are only three points ahead of the Predators, with three more games played than the Predators. So the Mammoth are a team that’s in danger of getting jumped over by the Predators, Kraken and Sharks who all have multiple fewer games played.

Going back to this time last year, the Predators were 11 points back of a much more balanced Western Conference playoff race. The Stars held a wildcard spot at 40 points. The Predators find themselves just three points back now.

Nashville Predators are again living off their penalty kill and forecheck, but also there are areas that can still show improvement

As for the team stats, the Predators are thriving off their penalty kill, just like they did last season. They finished 7th in penalty kill at a 81.5 percent success rate, while currently sitting at 8th in the NHL on the penalty kill with a slightly improved 82.6 percent rate.

The Predators have a team that plays blue collar hockey again. No one is above getting into the dirty areas, laying their body on the line to block heavy shots from the point, and of course Juuse Saros has done the rest while trying to bounce back from the worst season of his career in 2024-25.

Here’s a crazy penalty kill stat I dug up for you; the Predators have been shorthanded in a 5-on-3 situation eight times this season, while only surrendering a goal in that precarious situation once. Only the Boston Bruins have been in a 5-on-3 situation more times this season.

The power plays are pretty similar between the two seasons as well. This year the Predators are 19th at 18.6 percent success rate. Last year they were 18th, but also striking on the power play more often with a 21.9 percent rate. So there is room improvement there, and over this 10 of 14 winning stretch they are showing more efficiency on the power play.

The Predators struck for two power play goals in their most recent Tuesday win over the Wild. Luke Evangelista is leading the team in power play assists with seven, while the power play goals are widespread among the team.

Shockingly, Filip Forsberg has only one power play goal, as does Roman Josi. Ryan O’Reilly and Steven Stamkos each only have two power play goals. So if you’re looking for an opportunity for the Predators power play to move up, you need to see the big guns finishing more.

One of the areas that doomed the Predators last season was their goal differential at 5-on-5. They were 31st in this category at a -60 goal differential. This year, the Predators are still near the bottom but they’re only -14. Again, plenty of room for improvement and to continue to cut into that and get it closer to even. That’s a long-term goal the Predators can push towards, which will obviously keep them in the playoff race as well.

Finally when we look at individual stats, I want to go back to Evangelista. He’s clearly the most improved player on this team in 2025-26. He is living up to his contract holdout in training camp and is the engine that is making this Predators team tick. He’s already up to 25 points, 20 of those being assists, and just 14 points shy of his career high with over half a season left to play.

Of course how can we forget about the goal of the year so far when Evangelista attacked the entire Maple Leafs defense to score on his backhand. There were plenty of jokes that he “blacked out” in his celebration against his hometown Toronto team.

EVANGELISTA WITH A GOAL OF THE YEAR CANDIDATE 😱🚨
pic.twitter.com/zWyGo85gtC

— Spittin’ Chiclets (@spittinchiclets) December 21, 2025

Stamkos is becoming the mentor and leader of this team while also playing his best hockey since joining the Predators prior to last season. On top of his NHL-leading six game-winning goals, Stamkos is up to 15 total on the season and his pace is way ahead of his 27 goals in his first season with Nashville.

Stamkos has a career shooting percentage of 16.6, which is just inanse when you think about it. This season he’s even higher than his career avearge at 17.2. What this tells me, and it’s not rocket science, is that this team needs to be finding every way possible to get the puck on Stamkos’ stick in the scoring areas. Good things will keep happening.

That’s all I got for this Christmas break 2025 comparison to 2024. The Predators are definitely making some of us eat some crow that wrote them off back on Thanksgiving. I will be very intrigued to see how they come out of the break and if they keep the momentum surging.

If nothing else, they have at least proven to me that this team loves playing for each other and they’re not quitters.