Trailing two teams in the chase for the Western Conference\u2019s final wildcard playoff berth \u2014 and just barely ahead of three others \u2014 the Predators will begin their most important road trip of the season.<\/p>\n
Starting Thursday night in Los Angeles and continuing for a week afterward, the Preds (34-31-9) will play five straight road contests, four against teams battling for a wildcard spot.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Roman Josi of the Nashville Predators looks on during the first period against the Seattle Kraken at Climate Pledge Arena on March 10, 2026, in Seattle.<\/p>\n
Steph Chambers<\/p>\n
By the time they return home for the final three games of the season, the Preds will have a pretty good idea whether they\u2019ll make the postseason or miss the playoffs for a second straight year \u2014 something that hasn\u2019t happened since 2014.<\/p>\n
Here are five questions for the Predators as they get ready for the big western swing \u2014 which includes two games against the Kings, one against San Jose, one against Anaheim and one against Utah.<\/p>\n
Can the veterans carry the load?<\/p>\n
In losing three straight games by a combined margin of 11-5, the Predators failed to score more than two goals in any of the contests.<\/p>\n
But a look at the bigger picture shows that several Nashville veterans have performed pretty well in recent weeks.<\/p>\n
Forward Filip Forsberg, for instance, has 14 points (six goals, eight assists) in his last eight games. And forward Steven Stamkos has seven points (five goals, two assists) in his last seven contests.<\/p>\n
Team captain Roman Josi has been blanked in the last three contests but had chipped in regularly before that, totaling 17 points (three goals, 14 assists) in 18 prior games.<\/p>\n
Center Ryan O\u2019Reilly has been shut out during the losing streak as well, but had notched four points (two goals, two assists) in his previous four contests.<\/p>\n
The pattern also holds true for forward Jonathan Marchessault, who has been held off the scoreboard in the last three games but had posted seven assists in five previous outings.<\/p>\n
Which goalie will perform best?<\/p>\n
The Predators may be especially reliant on goaltending during the road trip, considering the team\u2019s recent scoring woes.<\/p>\n
Juuse Saros is almost certain to get the start Thursday, but Justus Annunen is likely to get a couple starts based on his recent play and the Preds\u2019 recent rotation.<\/p>\n
Over Nashville\u2019s last nine games, Saros \u2014 who sat out two contests with a lower body injury \u2014 has a 3-1 mark, with a .908 save percentage and 2.93 goals against average.<\/p>\n
During that same nine-game stretch, Annunen is 2-3, but both his save percentage (.934) and goals against average (2.03 goals against average) are noticeably better than those of Saros.<\/p>\n
Can the kids step up their production?<\/p>\n
After trading away three veteran forwards at the deadline, the Predators have placed a number of younger players in important positions down the stretch.<\/p>\n
Zach L\u2019Heureux is currently playing on the team\u2019s first line, Matthew Wood is the Preds\u2019 second-line center and Luke Evangelista is on the third line. Reid Schaefer, Fedor Svechkov and Joakim Kemell make up the fourth line.<\/p>\n
Aside from Wood, who has eight points (six goals, two assists) in his last 13 games, the Predators aren\u2019t getting a lot of offensive production from the young talents.<\/p>\n
L\u2019Heureux has one point (one goal) in his last 11 outings, Evangelista has three points (one goal, two assists) in his last 12 contests and Kemell has one point (one goal) in eight games this season.<\/p>\n
The Preds would benefit greatly from at least one or two of these players upping their production on the road trip.<\/p>\n
Can the Preds defeat opponents when it matters most?<\/p>\n
Many teams in \u201cchase mode\u201d for a playoff position don\u2019t have an opportunity to face rival clubs down the stretch.<\/p>\n
But that\u2019s not the case for the Predators (77 points) over the final eight contests of the regular season, as Nashville will twice face the Kings (78 points, currently holding the second wildcard spot), twice face the Sharks (77 points, tiebreaker edge over Preds) and once go up against Utah (82 points, holding the first wildcard spot).<\/p>\n
The Preds should feel reasonably confident heading into those five games, as Nashville is 1-0 against the Kings this season, 1-0 against the Sharks and 1-1-1 against the Mammoth.<\/p>\n
But if the Predators can\u2019t produce a winning mark in the remaining games against the very opponents they\u2019re battling for a postseason spot, then Nashville can hardly feel as if it\u2019s worthy of being a playoff team.<\/p>\n
Can Andrew Brunette better his job status?<\/p>\n
The Predators are set to hire a new general manager in a matter of weeks or months, and conventional wisdom holds that a new GM would want \u201chis guy\u201d \u2014 instead of Brunette \u2014 as the team\u2019s new head coach.<\/p>\n
That would almost certainly be the case if the Preds finish out of the playoffs yet again.<\/p>\n
But if Brunette can steer Nashville into the postseason for a second time in three years, especially after the team traded away four lineup regulars at the deadline, his resume would look much better than otherwise.<\/p>\n
It was only a couple seasons ago, after all, that Brunette finished runner-up in voting for the Jack Adams Award for NHL coach of the year, the second time in his coaching career he had attained that spot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Trailing two teams in the chase for the Western Conference\u2019s final wildcard playoff berth \u2014 and just barely…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":536934,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5130],"tags":[3291,3577,5,781,4156,4188,9245,4516,2409,4,182,1501,2686,234,5318,1489,2071,20334],"class_list":{"0":"post-536933","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-seattle-kraken","8":"tag-andrew-brunette","9":"tag-filip-forsberg","10":"tag-hockey","11":"tag-jonathan-marchessault","12":"tag-justus-annunen","13":"tag-kraken","14":"tag-luke-evangelista","15":"tag-matthew-wood","16":"tag-nashville","17":"tag-nhl","18":"tag-playoffs","19":"tag-roman-josi","20":"tag-seattle","21":"tag-seattle-kraken","22":"tag-seattlekraken","23":"tag-steven-stamkos","24":"tag-western-conference","25":"tag-wild-card"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116336296350093102","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=536933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536933\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/536934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}