Four Things The Nashville Predators Need To Get Back Into The Stanley Cup Playoffs

The Nashville Predators have only spent the last two seasons on the outside of the Stanley Cup playoffs looking in, but doesn't it feel like a lot longer than that?

Irrelevance sneaks up on you quick in this league, and it can hold you down a lot harder than you think. That's the reality the Predators were facing as the 2025-26 season came to an end.

But with a new GM, some big moves, and hopefully a better overarching vision, will the Predators have what it takes to get back into the playoffs in 2026-27?

Here are four key factors that could decide their fate.

The Predators scored just 242 goals last season, 13th-fewest in the league. But of those goals, 82 came off the sticks of just Steven Stamkos (a team-leading 42) and Filip Forsberg (40). Throw in another 25 from Ryan O'Reilly, and you're accounting for 44 percent of an entire team's output from just three veterans.

The next-closest scorer on the team, 21-year-old Matthew Wood, had just 17. That ends the list of guys who even got to 15 goals for them last year, which is far from ideal.

This is no way to go through a season, which is why the Preds traded for multiple forwards this summer. Not that you're counting on Ross Colton and Jack Drury to pop in 20-plus goals, but anything they can do to raise the floor on this roster is going to be helpful.

That's where the other forward they targeted via trade figures into things.

In his second full season in the NHL, Mavrik Bourque's goal total jumped from 11 to 20, finishing with 41 points total, which was also an improvement from the 25 he put up in his previous season with the Dallas Stars.

That's good progress for the 24-year-old, but hopefully he has more to give. The Preds probably can't count on those top guys to account for the same amount of the team's total goals. Getting Bourque to something more like 25-plus has to be the goal.

The good news is Bourque had very little power-play time in Dallas, with only four goals and 10 points coming on the man-advantage. It's understandable, because of all the great forwards on the Stars, that he didn't get those opportunities, and he should have few such impediments in Nashville.

The puck is on his stick here. If he's going to be worth the contract he just signed, he needs to start scoring more, and he'll certainly get that opportunity.

Remember when Juuse Saros felt like he might be a perennial Vezina contender? The Preds do, too.

They were so sure of it that they gave him a big, eight-year contract in his late 20s and traded Yaroslav Askarov to keep him in the fold. In the two years since that contract got signed, he's given them an .894 save percentage with a combined -16.7 goals saved above expected according to MoneyPuck.

Saros, his coaches and the team in front of him must find a way for the 31-year-old to get back to the level that was earning him Vezina votes, if not the kind that had him finish in the top-six four seasons in a row (frankly, he should have won at least one of those awards).

We've seen him do it, and not that far in the past. It's not impossible that he gets back to that level, or something close to it.

Brady Martin got a cup of coffee with the Predators early last season but got sent back to the Soo before you could say "greyhound."

He had a strong, albeit, injury-shortened season in the OHL and his international play was even better at the World Juniors. At the end of the year, he played three AHL playoff games with the Milwaukee Admirals and got another taste of professional hockey.

But the Predators badly need some youth in this lineup, and if Martin can hit the ground running, that's gonna be a huge boon for this team.

Maybe it's not fair to ask a kid who won't be 20 until January to put up 15-plus goals, but that's the position the Preds are in. They have the talent to help him along, but it's up to the player himself to have a great rookie season if the Preds are going to compete for a playoff spot.

For action-packed issues, access to the entire magazine archive and a free issue, subscribe to The Hockey News at THN.com/free. Get the latest news and trending stories by subscribing to our newsletter here. And share your thoughts by commenting below the article on THN.com or creating your own post in our community forum.