MarkusNaslund19
Registered User
- Dec 28, 2005
- 5,735
- 8,507
Looking at the Lightning between last year and this year (don't pay super focused attention on the line combos for last year, I'm going off of memory as an out of town fan).
Aging.
One dimensional. Only Hedman and Cernak to do the defensive heavy lifting.
Amazing top line and Stamkos a serious powerplay threat, but second line not particularly threatening.
Sergachev's injury hurt things.
Honestly, I thought Kucherov should have won the Hart Trophy as his insane year kept them afloat but they were, unfortunately, clearly paper tigers as soon as they ran into teams with a strong first line to go along with depth.
---
So let's look at the changes:
The primary ones are the following:
Traded Sergachev for J.J. Moser who is less polished offensively but more of the two way style they need and, importantly, much much cheaper as an option than Sergachev, along with Conor Geekie who gives them size, youth, and playmaking below the top line at a really really nice cap hit.
Let Stamkos go as his 5-5 contributions cratered.
And most importantly, with their cap savings they added Guentzel who is incredibly underrated as a serious top line threat and incredible facilitator to elite elite talent. He's always where he's supposed to be, a fantastic finisher, great at finding space, and great at smart one-touch passes to create space.
And they added the incredibly underrated Ryan McDonagh whom the Predators let go of in part to acquire the flashier name in Stamkos.
I firmly believe that McDonagh is a top 5 defensive D in this league.
When my Canucks played the Predators in the first round, there were people who lamented how our team looked less dominant than they wanted and our stars weren't as productive as we hoped, except in spurts, we generated very few shots etc.
I wasn't shocked because they had the combined shutdown talents of McDonagh and Ryan O'Reilly.
Letting go of the stoutness of McDonagh for the flashiness (and redundance) of two right handed snipers in Marchessault and Stamkos is going to hurt the Predators, but I'll get to that.
For now, look at this roster and tell me it's not remarkably better balanced than that of the year before.
Incredible single off-season surgery by Julien Brisebois.
At the deadline I'm sure they'd like to bring in one more second line winger or something to that effect, and maybe a veteran #5 D. But I think this roster is a serious threat to make some hay.
I'm not saying they're in the top 5 cup contenders, but they're not far from that whereas last year I had the distinct impression I was looking at a setting sun.
Versus 2024-25
Then we get to Nashville.
I'm not going to list last year's Predators roster because I'm running out of time to make this post before I need to sleep.
But lest we forget, Nashville entered last season with the feeling being that this might finally be their time to bottom out and accrue high draft picks to finally add some elite young forward skill to their lunch pail roster.
Then they weren't allowed to go to a concert which unlocked some strange voodoo that made them rattle off a crazy winning streak and become quite a formidable team.
Now, I'm not arguing that they should have intentionally tanked this season, I don't think a team's culture really recovers from that (see Sabres: Buffalo), but I think that they should have stuck with that identity of all-hands on deck, lunch pail gang, and seen if their youth really was being served.
Their youth looks mostly like middle sixers in Novak, Evangelista, Parssinen, and maybe even Tomasino.
There's nobody to really knock your socks off. But if they built around that identity and either watched some of their youth exceed expectations, or else crater a bit and get good picks, I think that was the move.
But the Predators were entirely seduced by their strong run, and decided to become massive buyers with an average age of their core 7 or 8 players approaching 33-34 years old.
Here is there roster this year:
Forsberg is a really underrated, truly elite player. If he played his career in a Canadian city with more offensive talent his name would be every where.
So why did the Predators TRIPLE DOWN on players of a similar player type in Marchessault and Stamkos.
RIght handed shoot first players who are going to want to play the left flank on the powerplay, and require someone to get them the puck.
And who is supposed to get them the puck?
Josi is a superstar, but an offensive D isn't enough when there is an absolute dearth of playmaking forwards. Nyquist is a nice puckmover who had a career year, but he's a winger and tends to be a second liner in his most effective years.
Ryan O'Reilly is a solid center, good two way with pretty good vision, but nobody is mistaking him for a first line playmaking option on a good team.
I, and everyone else, like and appreciate Colton Scissons as a player who is tough to play against and is a good soldier. But if he's your second line center, he's probably the 32nd best 2nd line center in the league when it comes to vision and playmaking.
The Predators:
Let McDonagh go to add Stamkos (aging, low calorie pp scorer at this point), Marchessault (aging, redundant with Forsberg and Stamkos), and Skjei who is fine as a puckmover but was protected by Carolina's peculiar system and can't carry McDonagh's jock strap when it comes to playing a pure, tough as nails, shutdown style.
And further, with the moves the Predators made giving big money to these three, as well as jettisoning Askarov and re-signing Saros to a big, long, contract. For the Predators it has to work out NOW. They basically have the next three seasons for anything to take place even optimistically before ending up in cap hell with a bunch of 35 year olds and going the way of the San Jose Sharks.
It's starting to look like the 'good years' for this revamped core of Nashville may not even happen for this flawed and unbalanced roster.
-
To reiterate my thesis Tampa did incredible surgery to refresh their status as a serious cup threat, while Nashville went all-in on a mirage and are now absolutely screwed for the foreseeable future.
-
These are all my takes as an out of town fan who loves following the entire league but will freely admit that I don't know as much about each team as the most knowledgeable of their respective die-hards do.
So what say you? Am I on to something or do you think Tampa is worse than I think? Do you think this is a blip and Nashville is gearing up for a run of dominance?
Curious to hear everyone's thoughts.
Really thin on D.
Aging.
One dimensional. Only Hedman and Cernak to do the defensive heavy lifting.
Amazing top line and Stamkos a serious powerplay threat, but second line not particularly threatening.
Sergachev's injury hurt things.
Honestly, I thought Kucherov should have won the Hart Trophy as his insane year kept them afloat but they were, unfortunately, clearly paper tigers as soon as they ran into teams with a strong first line to go along with depth.
---
So let's look at the changes:
The primary ones are the following:
Traded Sergachev for J.J. Moser who is less polished offensively but more of the two way style they need and, importantly, much much cheaper as an option than Sergachev, along with Conor Geekie who gives them size, youth, and playmaking below the top line at a really really nice cap hit.
Let Stamkos go as his 5-5 contributions cratered.
And most importantly, with their cap savings they added Guentzel who is incredibly underrated as a serious top line threat and incredible facilitator to elite elite talent. He's always where he's supposed to be, a fantastic finisher, great at finding space, and great at smart one-touch passes to create space.
And they added the incredibly underrated Ryan McDonagh whom the Predators let go of in part to acquire the flashier name in Stamkos.
I firmly believe that McDonagh is a top 5 defensive D in this league.
When my Canucks played the Predators in the first round, there were people who lamented how our team looked less dominant than they wanted and our stars weren't as productive as we hoped, except in spurts, we generated very few shots etc.
I wasn't shocked because they had the combined shutdown talents of McDonagh and Ryan O'Reilly.
Letting go of the stoutness of McDonagh for the flashiness (and redundance) of two right handed snipers in Marchessault and Stamkos is going to hurt the Predators, but I'll get to that.
For now, look at this roster and tell me it's not remarkably better balanced than that of the year before.
Incredible single off-season surgery by Julien Brisebois.
At the deadline I'm sure they'd like to bring in one more second line winger or something to that effect, and maybe a veteran #5 D. But I think this roster is a serious threat to make some hay.
I'm not saying they're in the top 5 cup contenders, but they're not far from that whereas last year I had the distinct impression I was looking at a setting sun.
Versus 2024-25
(7 - 4 - 0)
Injured/Unavailable:
LW C RW Jake Guentzel Brayden Point Nikita Kucherov [A] Brandon Hagel Anthony Cirelli Conor Geekie Michael Eyssimont Nick Paul Mitchell Chaffee Zemgus Girgensons Luke Glendening Cam Atkinson
Scratched:
Injured/Unavailable:
LD RD Victor Hedman [C] J.J. Moser Ryan McDonagh [A] Erik Černák Emil Lilleberg Nick Perbix
Scratched: Darren Raddysh
Injured/Unavailable:
G Andrei Vasilevskiy Jonas Johansson
Scratched:
Then we get to Nashville.
I'm not going to list last year's Predators roster because I'm running out of time to make this post before I need to sleep.
But lest we forget, Nashville entered last season with the feeling being that this might finally be their time to bottom out and accrue high draft picks to finally add some elite young forward skill to their lunch pail roster.
Then they weren't allowed to go to a concert which unlocked some strange voodoo that made them rattle off a crazy winning streak and become quite a formidable team.
Now, I'm not arguing that they should have intentionally tanked this season, I don't think a team's culture really recovers from that (see Sabres: Buffalo), but I think that they should have stuck with that identity of all-hands on deck, lunch pail gang, and seen if their youth really was being served.
Their youth looks mostly like middle sixers in Novak, Evangelista, Parssinen, and maybe even Tomasino.
There's nobody to really knock your socks off. But if they built around that identity and either watched some of their youth exceed expectations, or else crater a bit and get good picks, I think that was the move.
But the Predators were entirely seduced by their strong run, and decided to become massive buyers with an average age of their core 7 or 8 players approaching 33-34 years old.
Here is there roster this year:
(3 - 6 - 1)
Injured/Unavailable:
LW C RW Filip Forsberg [A] Ryan O'Reilly [A] Jonathan Marchessault Steven Stamkos Colton Sissons Gustav Nyquist Juuso Pärssinen Tommy Novak Luke Evangelista Zachary L'Heureux Michael McCarron Cole Smith
Scratched: Philip Tomasino, Mark Jankowski
Injured/Unavailable: Spencer Stastney
LD RD Brady Skjei Roman Josi [C] Jérémy Lauzon Alexandre Carrier Marc Del Gaizo Luke Schenn
Scratched: Dante Fabbro
Injured/Unavailable:
G Juuse Saros Scott Wedgewood
Scratched:
Forsberg is a really underrated, truly elite player. If he played his career in a Canadian city with more offensive talent his name would be every where.
So why did the Predators TRIPLE DOWN on players of a similar player type in Marchessault and Stamkos.
RIght handed shoot first players who are going to want to play the left flank on the powerplay, and require someone to get them the puck.
And who is supposed to get them the puck?
Josi is a superstar, but an offensive D isn't enough when there is an absolute dearth of playmaking forwards. Nyquist is a nice puckmover who had a career year, but he's a winger and tends to be a second liner in his most effective years.
Ryan O'Reilly is a solid center, good two way with pretty good vision, but nobody is mistaking him for a first line playmaking option on a good team.
I, and everyone else, like and appreciate Colton Scissons as a player who is tough to play against and is a good soldier. But if he's your second line center, he's probably the 32nd best 2nd line center in the league when it comes to vision and playmaking.
The Predators:
Let McDonagh go to add Stamkos (aging, low calorie pp scorer at this point), Marchessault (aging, redundant with Forsberg and Stamkos), and Skjei who is fine as a puckmover but was protected by Carolina's peculiar system and can't carry McDonagh's jock strap when it comes to playing a pure, tough as nails, shutdown style.
And further, with the moves the Predators made giving big money to these three, as well as jettisoning Askarov and re-signing Saros to a big, long, contract. For the Predators it has to work out NOW. They basically have the next three seasons for anything to take place even optimistically before ending up in cap hell with a bunch of 35 year olds and going the way of the San Jose Sharks.
It's starting to look like the 'good years' for this revamped core of Nashville may not even happen for this flawed and unbalanced roster.
-
To reiterate my thesis Tampa did incredible surgery to refresh their status as a serious cup threat, while Nashville went all-in on a mirage and are now absolutely screwed for the foreseeable future.
-
These are all my takes as an out of town fan who loves following the entire league but will freely admit that I don't know as much about each team as the most knowledgeable of their respective die-hards do.
So what say you? Am I on to something or do you think Tampa is worse than I think? Do you think this is a blip and Nashville is gearing up for a run of dominance?
Curious to hear everyone's thoughts.
