The Predators need to continue altering their forward lines until something clicks and sticks.
The Predators need to continue altering their forward lines until something clicks and sticks.
The Nashville Predators just don't have it this season and the team has started 4-7-1. After all of the major moves, expectations, and Stanley Cup aspirations, there isn't a ton of life in the team to begin the 2024-25 campaign.
Goaltending has turned things around and there isn't too much that can be done with the defense, but the forward group has to see a major change as hardly anything has worked through 12 games. The Predators have struggled to score and sit tied for second last in the league in points.
The one constant that has to remain the same is the top line of Filip Forsberg, Ryan O'Reilly, and Gustav Nyquist. Andrew Brunette would be playing with fire and risk disaster if the one consistent thing about the forward group this season and last were to be broken up and messed with. It might come to that though.
The chemistry of that line and the effectiveness leads the team and can't be matched by anyone else on the team. It can hardly be matched by many lines around the NHL.
With the expectation that the top line has to stay together, that means the Predators have 11 other forwards on the roster to make three lines that can create more of a spark and help the team turn it around.
Due to the contracts handed out to Steven Stamkos and Jonathan Marchessault and given that they are both top-6 talents, something has to be done to get the second line going with them on it. When line changes were made earlier in the season, Marchessault was tried on the third line. It didn't necessarily work out. He belongs on the second line, and if/when Nyquist moves on since he's in the last year of his contract, could even be a great choice to move up to play on the top line right wing.
The other duo that has done the most to stay together is Tommy Novak and Luke Evangelista. These two have played the majority of the season on the third line. I think both have the potential to play on the second line, but their production has still not been where both can get to and has been in the past.
Philip Tomasino, being young, hungry and having only played four games, should get a better opportunity. He played well in the pre-season as Zachary L'Heureux did. L'Heureux is rightfully in the lineup since making his NHL debut, but Tomasino has seen his regular spot in training camp go away with Mark Jankowski playing 11 games on the third line left wing instead.
Colton Sissons (12 games), Cole Smith (12 games), and Jankowski (11 games) have all greatly struggled offensively this season. The three have combined for two goals and four points and a -21 +/-.
Sissons is the only one of the three I wouldn't take out of the lineup yet, but he has been dropped to the fourth line. Jankowski either needs to be dropped down a line too or taken out of the lineup to allow for change. Smith needs to take a seat as well.
It is a good sign to see Juuso Parssinen get a chance in between Stamkos and Marchessault. Given the options at center and what he was able to accomplish two seasons ago in the top-6, he should get a decent look. One assist in four games is surprisingly a better scoring rate than 5/11 other forwards not on the top line.
It might get to a point where Stamkos and Marchessault are split again, Nyquist is actually moved off the top line for Marchessault or Evangelista, or Novak and Evangelista are split up from the third line. When a team with these kinds of expectations and not a lot of chemistry is struggling, anything should go in finding a fix.
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