Calling it Now: Tampa is a Serious Threat Again, Nashville has Screwed Themselves, and These facts are not Unrelated

[Lucas Hood]

OP, I think you're selling Evangelista short by calling him just a middle sixer, he just finished 5th in rookie scoring last year despite playing 10-15 games less than everyone else.



Duchene was a supposed locker room issue, plus if Duchene is there Ryan O'Reilly isn't and we'd much rather have O'Reilly.

Given what we've seen of him in Dallas I find it a bit hard to believe there was some irreversible bad blood there, its not like he had Kuznetsov level issues. But even if so, O'Reilly at 4.5 million + Duchene's buyout cost isn't really much of a deal. I can understand jettisoning Johansen and retaining half on him to make it happen but it really feels like Trotz just handicapped himself to no real benefit as Nashville is basically a declining bubble team of stars in their mid 30s with no gamechanging prospects on the horizon.

 

[benfranklin]

Way too long and you do realize they are in two different divisions and two different conferences right? This feels like it should be two different threads.

 

[PeE eL DuBoiS]

You shut your mouth when you're talking about 4-dimensional Brady Skjei.

 

[Master P]

I know a jinx thread when I see one.

 

[Soundgarden]

Given what we've seen of him in Dallas I find it a bit hard to believe there was some irreversible bad blood there, its not like he had Kuznetsov level issues. But even if so, O'Reilly at 4.5 million + Duchene's buyout cost isn't really much of a deal. I can understand jettisoning Johansen and retaining half on him to make it happen but it really feels like Trotz just handicapped himself to no real benefit as Nashville is basically a declining bubble team of stars in their mid 30s with no gamechanging prospects on the horizon.

Trotz's first priority was changing the locker room and he felt getting rid of Duchene and Johansen at any cost was that important. I don't know what happened there, but like you said he had just broken our goal scoring record the previous season, I highly doubt he moves him if there isn't a problem with him.

I think you're underestimating our prospect pool, it's very deep and could surprise with a star prospect or two, that is if we ever get a coach who is willing to play someone under 25.

 

[CatscratchFever]

Florida leads the league: watch out for Tampa! Ok.

 

[tucker3434]

The Lightning were smart to pass on Stamkos. Paying guys in their mid-30's rarely returns the value you're lookin for. GM's usually can't help themselves when it comes to a name like that.

 

[Lucas Hood]

Trotz's first priority was changing the locker room and he felt getting rid of Duchene and Johansen at any cost was that important. I don't know what happened there, but like you said he had just broken our goal scoring record the previous season, I highly doubt he moves him if there isn't a problem with him.

I think you're underestimating our prospect pool, it's very deep and could surprise with a star prospect or two, that is if we ever get a coach who is willing to play someone under 25.

Yeah its clear he felt that, but there doesn't seem much of a difference in the team performing outwardly with whatever locker room fix he did. And Duchene became a pretty big cog of a contending team with a no nonsense locker room right after.

Which Nashville prospects have star potential? I'll admit I'm not too closely familiar with your prospect pool. Wood, L'Heureux, Gibson all look solid but of the type that every team has. Evangelista is legit, but I don't see any gamebreakers coming up. Closest in that tier seemed to have been been Askarov.

 

[Dread Clawz]

Trotz's first priority was changing the locker room and he felt getting rid of Duchene and Johansen at any cost was that important. I don't know what happened there, but like you said he had just broken our goal scoring record the previous season, I highly doubt he moves him if there isn't a problem with him.

I think you're underestimating our prospect pool, it's very deep and could surprise with a star prospect or two, that is if we ever get a coach who is willing to play someone under 25.

I agree, I really like Nashville 's prospect pipeline.

 

[ucanthanzalthetruth]

Tampa is definitely a threat...to win 1 game against Florida in the playoffs

 

[Soundgarden]

The Lightning were smart to pass on Stamkos. Paying guys in their mid-30's rarely returns the value you're lookin for. GM's usually can't help themselves when it comes to a name like that.

It was worth it for Nashville to at least take that risk, even if he ends up busting.

Yeah it's clear he felt that, but there doesn't seem much of a difference in the team performing outwardly with whatever locker room fix he did. And Duchene became a pretty big cog of a contending team with a no nonsense locker room right after.

Which Nashville prospects have star potential? I'll admit I'm not too closely familiar with your prospect pool. Wood, L'Heureux, Gibson all look solid but of the type that every team has. Evangelista is legit, but I don't see any gamebreakers coming up. Closest in that tier seemed to have been been Askarov.

I disagree, with Ryan O'Reilly we have a legitimate 1st line center, Forsberg scored 48 goals last year in large part because of that.

A lot of our prospects are doing well, Woods at 2ppg,Kemell just had a 5 point night last game, Molendyk had a highlight Bobby Orr esque coast to coast goal, even a guy i wasn't high on like Schaefer is leading Milwaukee. Whether that translates into NHL Success I don't know. Plus we have three 1sts and we're 2nd to last in the league we could get a very nice player this year.

 

[Breakers]

LOVE LOVE them being ruthless in roster construction

Just moved on Stamkos like it was nothing

 

[DownIsTheNewUp]

Tampa is definitely a threat...to win 1 game against Florida in the playoffs

Or even worse, having your team hitting up the strip clubs while getting swept.

 

[BostonBob]

Calling it now - this is probably the worst thread title in HF Boards history.

 

[Roo]

When was Tampa not a threat?

 

[BFLO]

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).

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.


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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.

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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.


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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.

Good OP aside from blaming the "Sabres culture" for their failure.

The Sabres suck because of incompetent ownership and management decisions. Not because of the "culture"

 

[JoVel]

When was Tampa not a threat?

The past two years.

 

[benfranklin]

Good OP aside from blaming the "Sabres culture" for their failure.

The Sabres suck because of incompetent ownership and management decisions. Not because of the "culture"

Completely disagree. They have a culture problem that stems from ownership, but still a culture problem.