In the music business, you’re only as good as your last hit.

But after the Nashville Predators climbed the charts – errr, standings – with a franchise-record point streak that helped earn first-year coach Andrew Brunette a Jack Adams nomination in 2023-24, this season’s follow-up effort could only be called a Music City flop.

GM Barry Trotz was widely praised for winning free agency last summer when he brought in Steven Stamkos, Jonathan Marchessault and Brady Skjei. But when the new additions joined the mix, the end result was decidedly out of tune.

At his end-of-season media conference in early May, Trotz faced the music.

“I think I was the one who said it’s fantasy hockey until you become a good team,” he said. “We didn’t become a good team, unfortunately. You wanted to thread the needle, bring in accomplished veterans that we could mix in with our younger talent. We worked hard to acquire those players, and that plan is still in place.”

After starting the year with five straight losses, the Predators couldn’t manifest another moment like the ‘U2 at the Sphere’ cancellation that galvanized them and propelled them to a 2024 playoff berth. As their results continued to disappoint, the organization elected to accelerate the timeline for some of the team’s younger players and prospects.

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That talent pool is overseen by Jeff Kealty, the team’s assistant GM and director of scouting. He was pleased that both of the Preds’ 2021 first-rounders, center Fedor Svechkov and left winger Zachary L’Heureux, earned meaningful minutes on the big club after starting the year with the AHL’s Milwaukee Admirals.

“Centermen are hard to come by,” Kealty said. “(Svechkov) probably played even more than we would have projected this year based on injuries late in the season and what-have-you. He’s a really good up-and-coming player, plays a good two-way game, and he’s only going to get bigger and stronger. Zach L’Heureux already made some impact in terms of the on-the-edge game that he has. That’s part of what makes him effective.”

In just his second season in North America, Svechkov carved out a full-time NHL roster spot by January and finished with 17 points in 52 games with the Predators.

L’Heureux was summoned after just four AHL games in October. He finished with 15 points in 62 games – and kicked off 2025 with his first appointment with the NHL’s department of player safety, after he received a match penalty for a slew-foot that injured Minnesota Wild captain Jared Spurgeon on New Year’s Eve (he was suspended for three games).

Historically, Nashville has given its prospects plenty of time to mature in Milwaukee before they make the jump to the NHL.

After Svechkov and L’Heureux, the next wave to emerge from America’s Dairyland could include 2022 first-rounder Joakim Kemell and a pair of trade acquisitions – pesky Ozzy Wiesblatt, a 2020 first-rounder who was picked up from San Jose a year ago, and power forward Reid Schaefer, a 2022 first-rounder who was part of the return in the 2023 Mattias Ekholm trade with Edmonton.

After Schaefer put up 14 points in his first 19 games, his second season in Milwaukee ended in early December due to a shoulder injury that required surgery. Kealty remains high on the 6-foot-5, 226-pound left winger.

“You could really see the stuff that he had taken from one year to the next,” Kealty said. “He’s another guy that was a young pro the year before, and it took him a little bit to get adjusted. But the second half of last year and the beginning of this year, you could see this big powerful guy. He skates really well and is a very intelligent player. He’s going to open some eyes next year when he comes in.”

Nashville’s best prospect at the junior level is stud defenseman Tanner Molendyk, drafted with Edmonton’s 2023 first-round pick from the Ekholm deal.

After two solid playoff runs with the Saskatoon Blades, the 20-year-old was dealt to the powerhouse Medicine Hat Tigers for his final WHL post-season, where he has played with presumptive 2026 No. 1 overall draft pick Gavin McKenna and Wiesblatt’s younger brother, Oasiz, a crafty but undrafted center who scores in bunches. Oasiz joined his brother in the Predators organization after signing an AHL deal with Milwaukee in late April.

After seeing Molendyk push for a roster spot in the past two training camps, Trotz expects the same this fall.

The GM is also looking forward to seeing more from Matthew Wood, the 15th pick overall from 2023 who got into six games at the end of this season after a strong junior NCAA campaign with the University of Minnesota.

“I was really impressed with him,” Trotz said. “It’s a big, big jump, but he did very well in terms of the pace. His length was good. He made those little plays that looked more like an NHLer than a college kid.”

Nashville’s draft class of 2024 is also looking strong. First-round draft pick Egor Surin spent most of his season on the main roster for Lokomotiv Yaroslavl in the KHL, gaining valuable experience and scoring goals as his team won the Western Conference and then took home the Gagarin Cup.

Second-rounder Teddy Stiga had a strong freshman campaign at Boston College and carved his place in history when his overtime golden goal gave Team USA their first back-to-back titles at the World Junior Championship.

Before this season, the Predators had missed the playoffs just four times in the past 20 years. So, they’ve built out their prospect pool without many high draft selections. They’ve never picked higher than second overall, when they drafted David Legwand after they came into the league in 1998.

Franchise icon Pekka Rinne was an eighth-round pick in 2004, and his successor, Juuse Saros, was taken in Round 4. Roman Josi and Shea Weber, who each wore the ‘C’ while patrolling the blueline in Nashville, were second-round picks. So Nashville’s current cache of draft capital is somewhat unprecedented. At season’s end, the team held 10 picks in the 2025 draft, including three first-rounders, plus nine more picks in each of 2026 and 2027.

After the Preds finished 30th in the league standings, luck was not on their side at the draft lottery. Wins by the New York Islanders and Utah Mammoth pushed Nashville down from third overall to fifth, but Kealty still sees an opportunity to improve his club.

“There’s a good variety of players,” he said. “I say this all the time, and you can go back and look at any draft, there’s always players to be found. That’s the job of the scouting staff, and our guys are working real hard at that.”

Like many Predators players, Kealty rose up to his current position via Milwaukee. After winning two Hockey East titles in four seasons on the blueline at Boston University, the 6-foot-4 defenseman signed with the brand-new Predators for the 1998-99 season and spent his first pro year with Milwaukee, which was then in the IHL. A pre-season concussion ended his playing career at just 23 in 1999. Kealty returned to Nashville as an amateur scout once his symptoms finally cleared. That was in 2001. He has climbed the management ranks ever since.

In 2007, Kealty became Nashville’s director of amateur scouting. Then, in 2018, he rose to director of scouting and assistant GM. This spring, he also got his first call from USA Hockey since playing at the WJC in 1996 – to head up the front office as GM for the World Championship.

Loyalty is a hallmark of the Predators’ organization, where David Poile sat in the GM’s chair for 26 years and still serves as a senior advisor. Trotz succeeded him in 2023, after a 15-year run as Nashville’s first coach. So, it’s not surprising that, despite the challenges of this season, Trotz has elected to stand by Brunette, who Trotz coached on the Predators in their first season, then handpicked to run the bench.

“I was Andrew Brunette, way back when,” Trotz said. “I thought I had a lot of tools in my tool belt, and you find out you have to add a couple more. Good young people, when you believe in them, just like a good, young player, you stick with them.”

After stealing the free-agency spotlight last year, Trotz expects to keep a lower profile this summer. Beyond the draft, his to-do list includes coming to contract terms with 23-year-old RFA winger Luke Evangelista and looking for “hockey trades,” like the one that brought Michael Bunting to Music City in March.

Next season, Trotz is looking for significant on-ice improvements – especially when it comes to Nashville’s 5-on-5 play. And while he says the team’s culture is strong, more brutal honesty is required in the dressing room and from the coaching staff. “We have really good guys,” Trotz said. “Sometimes, maybe too nice. Sometimes, you don’t want to step on each others’ toes. I can be a nice guy, but I know when I don’t have to be a nice guy.”

This article appeared in our 2025 Draft Preview issue. Our cover story focuses on the Erie Otters' star defenseman and top draft prospect Matthew Schaefer, who has excelled despite the personal losses of his past. We also include features on other top prospects, including Michael Misa and more. In addition, we give our list of the top-100 prospects heading into the 2025 NHL draft.

You can get it in print for free when you subscribe to The Hockey News at THN.com/Free today. All subscriptions include complete access to more than 76 years of articles at The Hockey News Archive.