NASHVILLE — The Nashville Predators never doubted they would contend for a playoff spot.
Proving it to everyone outside of their camp took far longer than expected.
Dead last in the NHL standings on Dec. 8, Nashville goes into its final 10 games of the regular season in position for the Western Conference’s second and final wild-card berth. On top of that, the Predators — who were 34-29 with nine overtime losses through their first 72 games entering Friday — are also just three points back of the Utah Mammoth (37-30-6) for the first wild-card berth with a game in hand.
“I think each and every one in this room thought we’d be here, and I think that’s really all that matters,” Predators forward Filip Forsberg said. “Whatever’s going on outside this room is out of our control. Since the trade deadline, I think everyone’s been bought in.”
Nashville’s five-game winning streak ended Thursday night with a 4-2 loss to the New Jersey Devils, but the Predators have clawed their way out of a hole that had them 11 points out of their conference’s last playoff berth. Since Dec. 9, they are 24-15-5.
“We’ve just got to keep doing everything we can to stay on top,” said Forsberg, who will try to help his team do just that when they return to the game ice Saturday night as the Eastern Conference’s Montreal Canadiens (40-21-10) visit Bridgestone Arena.
Contending has been the expectation since Nashville’s free-agent spending spree in July 2024.
General manager Barry Trotz signed forwards Jonathan Marchessault (the 2023 Conn Smythe Trophy winner as the MVP of that year’s playoffs for the champion Vegas Golden Knights) and Steven Stamkos (a two-time Stanley Cup winner with the Tampa Bay Lightning in 2020 and 2021), plus veteran defenseman Brady Skjei, putting the Predators among the favorites to win the Stanley Cup last season.
Instead, the Predators completely missed the playoffs (with only the San Jose Sharks and the Chicago Blackhawks between them and last place in the NHL), then slipped two spots in the draft lottery as things got worse.
In the offseason that followed, the Predators talked plenty about trying to fix what went wrong, but they stumbled out of the gate yet again. It didn’t help when captain Roman Josi was sidelined eight games into the season by an upper-body injury that cost him 12 contests.
Stamkos started the turnaround. After only six goals and three assists through the first 25 games, Stamkos started scoring in December with 12 goals. He now leads the Predators with 36 goals, and it’s only the fourth time a player has scored at least 35 in a season for Nashville, which debuted in 1998.
Andrew Brunette, who took over as Nashville’s coach ahead of the 2023-24 season, said Thursday that Stamkos didn’t change after the slow start, which he called remarkable.
“I mean, I considered myself a pretty good team player,” said Brunette, a former wing whose decade and a half on the NHL ice included one season (1998-99) with the Predators. “I’m not sure I would handle things the way he handled it, where he just came to work every day and tried to help as many people as he could. That’s why you’re so ecstatic he took off.”
Nashville’s other veterans are doing their part as well. Josi has 30 points since Jan. 11, fifth most among defensemen, and Forsberg has 12 points during Nashville’s past five games.
Meanwhile, Marchessault has 10 assists this month alone, including three in Tuesday night’s 6-3 win against San Jose.
“He’s obviously been battling through a couple things during the season, but now this is what we brought him here for, you know, the end of the season,” Forsberg said. “And he’s showing some incredible playmaking.”
Trotz, who on Feb. 2 announced his plan to retire (he will remain in the GM role until Nashville finds a successor), stuck with his pricey veterans and traded away only four players on expiring contracts before the NHL trade deadline on March 6.
That freed up more playing time for the rookies, and Nashville’s six went into Thursday with a combined 201 games this season to rank seventh in the NHL. Those rookies also had 25 goals to rank 10th in the league. And after Reid Schaefer’s goal Thursday night, they have a combined 15 points since March 5, led by center Matthew Wood’s six goals in that time.
Nashville forward Luke Evangelista, who has a career-high 40 assists and 50 points in his fourth NHL season, said working through this helped the Predators build a strong bond.
“It feels like we’ve seen the lowest of lows together, and we’ve dragged ourselves out of the mud,” Evangelista said, “and we did it together as a group, and I think that just kind of built that toughness.”
The Predators have some company in rebounding this season. The Buffalo Sabres were last in the Eastern Conference on Dec. 13 before pushing to first in their Atlantic Division on March 8. The Columbus Blue Jackets were last in the Eastern Conference on Jan. 12, but then a coaching change pushed them to second in the Metropolitan Division.
Nashville, which did put itself out of position for one of the postseason berths via a top-three finish in the Central Division, has plenty of incentive to keep pushing through the end of the regular season.
The team that clinches the top wild-card berth will play the Pacific Division champ rather than start against the Colorado Avalanche, which leads the NHL standings in points and along with the Dallas Stars — 1-2 in the Central — has already clinched a playoff spot.
After hosting the Canadiens, the Predators will visit Tampa Bay on Sunday to start a six-game road swing with five teams within six points of them.
“Every game from here on out” Skjei said, “is going to be a playoff-type game for us.”