Nashville Predators Talk - 2024/2025 Season II

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If I had access to a stats analytic engine, I'd love to take all Pred high-level draft picks starting with Tolvanon and chart their minutes and percentages on Top 6 and Bottom 6 lines while playing with the Preds and who they were playing with. It feels like they don't stick with them on Top 6 lines, but I'd love to have the data.

Their deployment of #68 this year is frustrating. He showed a scoring flair for the Admirals, yet he's being used as a poor man's Jordan Tootoo for most of this year. Before we stereotype players as Bottom 6 Energy guys or checkers, can we please give them a long look on the Top 6?
What's funny is, they love to try Smith in those roles whenever they can, yet ZLH is stuck with McCarron.
 
If I had access to a stats analytic engine, I'd love to take all Pred high-level draft picks starting with Tolvanon and chart their minutes and percentages on Top 6 and Bottom 6 lines while playing with the Preds and who they were playing with. It feels like they don't stick with them on Top 6 lines, but I'd love to have the data.

Their deployment of #68 this year is frustrating. He showed a scoring flair for the Admirals, yet he's being used as a poor man's Jordan Tootoo for most of this year. Before we stereotype players as Bottom 6 Energy guys or checkers, can we please give them a long look on the Top 6?
That's what they should be doing being we are in the position we are in, but Trotz and Brunette are going to Trotz and Brunette. I'm just happy they finally put Evangelista in the top 6. It's at least a start.

Also on Stamkos retiring, I seriously doubt it unless he has had some life thing pop up suddenly. The talk all season long is how he wants to play until 40 or longer.
 
The only thing with the Tolvanen pick was not picking Robertson who went shortly thereafter and then not trying to move him to acquire Stone was mistake number 2.

Hindsight is a tricky thing and we can over analyze this to death.

My biggest concern is our inability as a franchise to draft and develop top 6 talent. I’d settle for that at this point and the next step is drafting and developing top 3 talent.

I can't see any issue with picking Tolvanen over Robertson. I mean, you can congratulate Dallas for "not being dumb".... like most other NHL teams were... possibly even for being extra-smart... if you happened to know they had Robertson ranked CONSIDERABLY higher on their list than everybody else did.

But they got Robertson at #39. That's.... quite the draft from #14 to #39...

Norris and Thomas were good picks. Dallas absolutely struck gold with Oettinger then Robertson.

1743105544597.png


But who's asking all those other teams why they didn't take Robertson? Out of 25 picks in a row there, Tolvanen might be what, 5th or 6th best or so?

Then if you want to stack the pre-draft rankings on top of that, Robertson STILL fell relative to being ranked around #27...
1743105488339.png


As did Tolvanen, but he was ranked a lot higher than Robertson was...
1743105757466.png


Anyway, I think these are the kinds of things where you can't exactly fault us for at least getting Tolvanen in that draft. You can :bow: for Dallas. But we did better than most teams. We subsequently threw that modest success straight into the trash bin, mind you. But it wasn't the scouting/drafting that messed up.
 
What's funny is, they love to try Smith in those roles whenever they can, yet ZLH is stuck with McCarron.
I understand not wanting to put two raw rookies on a line together like svechkov and L’Heureux but it really kills me that we can't elevated one of them to the top 6 and spread the vet depth around.

Forsberg ror Evangelista
L’Heureux Stamkos March
Bunting svech sissons
Smith McCarron extras

Let Bunting get some extra shifts in with stamkos and call it a day.
 
Any info on Stamkos possibly retiring after current season? This news was broken in a Finnish NHL podcast which is co-hosted by ex-Pred Kimmo Timonen who obviously has good intel on things and talks to Trotz from time to time etc. They told it quite non-chalantly, too. I was intrigued as Stammer is only on year 1 of his four year contract and he'd leave quite a bit of money on the table. Besides, while he hasn't been a top50 player this season it's not like he's Brett Hull in 2005 either. Tried googling it but can't find anything. Quite bizarre.

I can't believe this news for multiple reasons. One is the source, not that Timonen might not have connections here, but someone closer would have been talking about it already, or confirmed it within the past 24 hours since it broke. Second is Timonen himself was always an exemplary professional. I really, really doubt that if he did have this news that he wouldn't respect Stamkos enough not to leak it before Stammer officially announced it.

Then of course there's the $22.5M that he'd be leaving on the table, yes he's made a lot of money in his career but that's still 18% of his total career earnings. Plus he's an elite professional athlete, those guys aren't known for just giving up in a difficult situation. I could see him asking for a trade before just outright retiring, even with his scoring being down there has to be plenty of teams that would love to have him just for the PR and jersey sales.
 
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So I did some more research on our most recent drafting history. I'm going to take into account the four-year period from 2019 to 2022. 2018 we didn't have a 1st rounder and 2023 is so recent that the jury is still out on that. I'm gonna lump the ranges where we were picking into 5 players/picks.

2019

24th pick: Philip Tomasino
25: Connor McMichael
26: Jakob Pelletier
27: Nolan Foote
28: Ryan Suzuki

Given everything not a bad pick from us. But the McMichael pick RIGHT after us is what stings.

2020

11: Askarov
12: Anton Lundell
13: Seth Jarvis
14: Dylan Holloway
15: Rodion Amirov

Just an absolute miss from us. Three clear top-six talents (one C) right after our pick. MASSIVE blunder especially considering how the Askarov saga ended up.

2021

19: Svechkov
20: Jesper Wallstedt
21: Fabian Lysell
22: Xavier Bourgault
23: WYATT JOHNSTON
(24): Mackie Samoskevich

Not the worst pick by us, but an elite goalie prospect, one borderline elite center and one top-six scoring winger picked pretty much right after our pick. I guess it could've been even worse but certainly it could've been a lot better also.

2022

17: Kemell
18: Lian Bischel
19: Liam Ohgren
20: Ivan Miroshnichenko
21: Owen Pickering

I actually think that this draft (in addition to the 2020 one) will end up stinging us for long. Bischel looks like an absolute stud for Dallas with his size, nastiness and skating ability all wrapped up in one player. All the four players have played more NHL games than Kemell who's looking more and more like a bust. 5'9'' wingers who are not exceptional skaters don't tend to be NHL players.

--

All-in-all, I'd rate our drafting during that time period as weak. There are some decent ones but the ability to truly identify and draft a talent that makes a difference is mind-boggling. You'd think that even with sheer luck you'd be able to hit on one of those players some day. I guess it also goes to show you that our development is lacking as well with these players as I don't think it can be a coincidence that teams like Dallas and St. Louis are able to hit with pretty much every 1st rounder they draft.
The problem I have with this kind of post (not the poster) but with the Preds Org is that we could have say picked one of those other players but the GM/HC have not shown that they will play the young players like the teams that actually chose those players.

Tomasino for Pitt has played 45 games with 10/10/20. Was that not good enough for the Preds? They (Preds) played him like a yo-yo and messed with him constantly.

Not a young player and many did not want but Kiefer Sherwood is another player who left and is playing better away from Nashville than when he was with Nashville. Van stats 68 games 17/15/32 AND just set a new NHL hits record.

Fabbro is having an excellent year in CBJ 51 games 5/12/17 playing 21:57 a game.

Jankowski is another that fans wanted gone but with Car 8 games 6/0/6.

My point is why are these players excelling away from Nashville and ALL of these great players brought in struggling? (Stamkos, March, Skjei) As well as pretty much the whole team is struggling. For two years now! How long can GMBT keep blaming the players before the owners see it is not the players?
 
Where can we find this source?

I'm sure this season is not what Stamkos was expecting and, speculating, but, for a player who has been a star his whole career I wouldn't be surprised if he was embarrassed. However, as long as his health holds up why would he walk away from 24 million? This is the last big contract he is getting.
I'm not saying it's true or not, but it is not out of the realm of possibility that Stamkos hangs them up. He is an older guy who has played what 16-17 years already in this league. He has made over 125 million dollars. He has won the Cup. There is almost nothing left for him to prove or accomplish.
I can easily see him as a guy who spent his entire career (up till now) as the face of a franchise. He loved the city and the city loved him. I can't imagine the amount of relationships he and his family have made there in that community. I can promise if Tampa had offered anything remotely competitive to what Trotz did he would have never left. But they didn't so in truth he didn't come here to win; he came here to retire. But now he looks at this roster and its bleak future, and maybe he is thinking he can call it a career a couple of years early, take his millions in the bank and his Cup rings and go back home. Do I think he retires after the end of the season? No. But I can certainly understand if he did.
 
Maybe the exit interviews this year will open Trotz's mind a little? He went out and hand-picked all these character/culture veterans. If they sit down with him in a few weeks and tell him they think Bruno sucks, what does that do? Does it blow Trotz's mind? Will it be too big a cognitive dissonance for him to handle?

Marchessault already kind of alluded to it. What if all the others echo him? Trotz wants to fully support his coach. He also believes strongly in the character/culture veteran players. Who wins? :dunno:
 
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It bothers me that Trotz and Brunette think McCarron is a better 4th line C than Jankowski despite the underlying numbers and results being ridiculously lopsided in Jank's favor. Sure, you can say "it's just Jankowski, it doesn't matter", but it's a symptom of a way bigger issue. They are set in their ways no matter what the numbers say, they're not interested, they know better. In fact, signing Stamkos to that contract is the proof they don't.Their player evaluation is atrocious. They let Sherwood, who made the 4th line work retrieving pucks, walk, and they just keep doubling down on these bad hockey players that produce bad results because of "sandpaper". I bet they think Cole Smith is better than Sherwood for the same reason. "Sandpaper". Won't be at all shocking if Bunting's another Trotz flop. Sissons is another player that gets overutilized constantly season after season.

When he comes out and starts talking about "just a couple of small tweaks but mostly keep things as they are" it already makes me depressed and unexcited for next season and we're not even done with this one yet. What are we gonna get? Bunting getting his undeserved 17 minutes a night over any young player just like Nyquist did right up until he was gone? Depressing.
 
I think everyone missed my point about Tolvanen. I said we could over analyze this pick to death, which has been done over and over. That was the pick, I'm fine with it.

The problem I have with this org is every team seems to find a gem outside the first round when it comes to forwards, except us. Outside of Arvy, Erat, Sissons, Smith and Tootoo, who was a regular that we picked outside of round 1? Then on top of it, who have we picked in the first round who turned into a great top 6 player? Hartnell, Fiala, Radulov are the only three I can think of. Legwand was solid too but none of these guys were superstars.

We suck at drafting and developing forwards, plain and simple. Change needs to happen for it to improve. The problem is when you're looking thru the same lens year in and year out, you don't get a different perspective.
 
It bothers me that Trotz and Brunette think McCarron is a better 4th line C than Jankowski despite the underlying numbers and results being ridiculously lopsided in Jank's favor. Sure, you can say "it's just Jankowski, it doesn't matter", but it's a symptom of a way bigger issue. They are set in their ways no matter what the numbers say, they're not interested, they know better. In fact, signing Stamkos to that contract is the proof they don't.Their player evaluation is atrocious. They let Sherwood, who made the 4th line work retrieving pucks, walk, and they just keep doubling down on these bad hockey players that produce bad results because of "sandpaper". I bet they think Cole Smith is better than Sherwood for the same reason. "Sandpaper". Won't be at all shocking if Bunting's another Trotz flop. Sissons is another player that gets overutilized constantly season after season.

When he comes out and starts talking about "just a couple of small tweaks but mostly keep things as they are" it already makes me depressed and unexcited for next season and we're not even done with this one yet. What are we gonna get? Bunting getting his undeserved 17 minutes a night over any young player just like Nyquist did right up until he was gone? Depressing.
I think Sissons had his role down pat in previous seasons, but aside from that I agree.

I don't think anybody here would ever disagree that Jankowski was the superior player between him and McCarron. I'd take it a step further and say that he's better than Smith also. The problem again comes down to us having 3 or 4 of these guys in our lineup every night, when instead we should only ever have 1.

The Preds braintrust will say that McCarron (aka "Big Sexy") has great off-ice intangibles and value in terms of keeping things loose in the dressing room or whatever. Or that Smith hits the gym hard and piles up 20 miles on the bike after every game and shows up looking gung-ho at every team meeting. Etc. Ok. I also get rewarding a #13F who isn't strictly an NHL player on talent but who brings something to the room which serves as an example. Just... you don't need 4 of those guys. You don't need to promote the surplus in that area over your young players who have actual NHL-level talent. Stop at 1. Carry 1 of these guys. Just 1. Not 4.
:dunno:
 
I think everyone missed my point about Tolvanen. I said we could over analyze this pick to death, which has been done over and over. That was the pick, I'm fine with it.

The problem I have with this org is every team seems to find a gem outside the first round when it comes to forwards, except us. Outside of Arvy, Erat, Sissons, Smith and Tootoo, who was a regular that we picked outside of round 1? Then on top of it, who have we picked in the first round who turned into a great top 6 player? Hartnell, Fiala, Radulov are the only three I can think of. Legwand was solid too but none of these guys were superstars.

We suck at drafting and developing forwards, plain and simple. Change needs to happen for it to improve. The problem is when you're looking thru the same lens year in and year out, you don't get a different perspective.
I agree. But is it who they are drafting or what type of player are they drafting THEN is player development even working in Nashville. Who has the Preds drafted and developed? The ONLY players they have developed have been D and G's. NO offensive players. Then players they drafted were a specific mold, not the best offensive player. And if they were offensive, how long did they stay? Ala Fiala, Tolvanen, Radulov, to name a few.
 
I think Sissons had his role down pat in previous seasons, but aside from that I agree.

I don't think anybody here would ever disagree that Jankowski was the superior player between him and McCarron. I'd take it a step further and say that he's better than Smith also. The problem again comes down to us having 3 or 4 of these guys in our lineup every night, when instead we should only ever have 1.

The Preds braintrust will say that McCarron (aka "Big Sexy") has great off-ice intangibles and value in terms of keeping things loose in the dressing room or whatever. Or that Smith hits the gym hard and piles up 20 miles on the bike after every game and shows up looking gung-ho at every team meeting. Etc. Ok. I also get rewarding a #13F who isn't strictly an NHL player on talent but who brings something to the room which serves as an example. Just... you don't need 4 of those guys. You don't need to promote the surplus in that area over your young players who have actual NHL-level talent. Stop at 1. Carry 1 of these guys. Just 1. Not 4.
:dunno:
McCarron is soft. If you want a cheerleader sign him to a non NHL contract and keep him around the team. Otherwise, cut him loose. It might be a good wake-up call.
 
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I agree. But is it who they are drafting or what type of player are they drafting THEN is player development even working in Nashville. Who has the Preds drafted and developed? The ONLY players they have developed have been D and G's. NO offensive players. Then players they drafted were a specific mold, not the best offensive player. And if they were offensive, how long did they stay? Ala Fiala, Tolvanen, Radulov, to name a few.
That's just it. At some point you have to give your young forwards legitimate opportunity. If you don't, they are going to sail away. That's our roadblock. I don't know why. Why do we value some 28-30 year old AHL tweeners above our 22-23 year olds who actually have upside?

Maybe it's one thing when you're a bubble team and the coach thinks (still probably wrongly) that the veteran player will make the safer play and help you make that Wildcard playoff spot?

But now when we're a basement trash team? It absolutely should not be the same mindset. And yet it is... :help:
 
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McCarron is soft. If you want a cheerleader sign him to a non NHL contract and keep him around the team. Otherwise, cut him loose. It might be a good wake-up call.
He's not exactly soft. He has 100pim. To lead our team. Not like he's very effective with either his physicality or fighting. But he's willing. He knows what it will take for him to stick in the NHL, and he punches the clock on that requirement.

But end of the day, he still has 11 pts and is -18. He's just not an NHL level player, on skills/on-ice contribution alone.

So okay, if his "intangibles" raise the bar and you want to keep him around despite his lack of NHL talent... you can do that. Just... he should be the ONLY player on the entire roster you give that pass to. Carry 1 of these guys. Cut loose Smith, Lauzon, whoever else is not really an NHL player.
 
Preds had chaos at start of the season. Ok, it’s now over. Preds have chaos at the end of the season. Changing a lot of things has resulted in remaining the same. Just “Wait till next year”; Why? I point out Preds have changed a lot of players. GM, Coaches and Scouts are virtually the same. Haslam, this is a hint!
 
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The organization needs a major overhaul in the scouting and player development department. Doubt it will happen because of the nepotism and “predators way” though. Depending on how the GM wants to rebuild the roster, they should be poaching the scouting department from Dallas or Carolina and Vegas.
 
People love bringing up Sherwood all the time as a Trotz problem but never stop to think that maybe he just didn't want to play in Nashville anymore
Agree that Sherwood may have decided to leave but why he did may also be a Trotz problem. There may be others who would like to leave but can’t. They make too much but that may also be a Trotz problem
0k, ok; I think Trotz is a problem and I really respect the good man he is. But when he left coaching here it was time and he probably should have stayed gone. Preds knew what his philosophy was. And that is yesterday’s philosophy.
 
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