What Nashville Predators Can Learn About Building a Champion From the Florida Panthers
The Nashville Predators may not be too far off assembling a championship team and there's some key team-building strategies to learn from the Florida Panthers.
What Nashville Predators Can Learn About Building a Champion From the Florida PanthersThe Florida Panthers are the 2024 Stanley Cup champions and it wasn't easy. Only one of 32 teams win it each year, so if the Nashville Predators are going to get to that level anytime soon, there are definitely some things the team can learn from how the Panthers were built to win.
The Panthers had a capable team last year as well, they just came up short. Even though they had a stranglehold on the final series at 3-0 and let the Edmonton Oilers back in it to force a Game 7, Florida was able to finish it off and win the first Stanley Cup in franchise history. The Predators are still in search of their first.
Elite Goaltending
Starting with the only member of the Panthers to receive a first place vote for the Conn Smythe trophy, starter Sergei Bobrovsky did a ton for the team again this playoff run and other than a few games in the final where he struggled, won many games for Florida on the way to hoisting the Cup.
Elite goaltending is a must. This doesn't have to be an elite goaltender, but someone who can play at a high enough level when the games matter most to help carry his team through four rounds and to 16 victories.
Take away the three bad games in a row against the Oilers and Bobrovsky had a .918 SV% this postseason. With those three games he finished with a .906 SV%, but still went 16-8 with two shutouts.
If the Predators want to go deep in the playoffs again, Juuse Saros has to step up and play even better once the postseason rolls around. He has a .911 SV% in the playoffs in his career, but only a .900 SV% in six starts this year.
Three of the games he posted a sub-.900 SV%, but the other three Saros allowed just one goal each and the lowest SV% he had was .944. There's not much in between for Saros in the playoffs. It's either a great start or a rough start and that will have to improve if the Predators are going to go deeper with him in the crease moving forward.
Building a Dominant Defense
The Panthers were the best defensive team in the league by allowing the least goals against during the regular season. With a combination of great goaltending, solid two-way play up front, and a very strong 6-man defensive group, Florida was able to shut the best teams in the league down on the way to the Stanley Cup.
The group consisted of one draft pick (Aaron Ekblad), one waiver claim (Gustav Forsling), one trade acquisition (Brandon Montour), and three cheap free agent signings (Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Niko Mikkola, and Dmitry Kulikov). While the cap hit of Ekblad is $7.5 million AAV, the other five defenseman combined for a cap hit of just $11.92 million AAV. It's very difficult to beat that, but taking chances on players is a key takeaway from the Panthers' defense.
The Predators have built their group a bit differently. Nashville has always done well drafting defenseman and that hasn't changed recently. Spencer Stastney and Marc Del Gaizo should be the next two drafted defensemen to get full-time roles on the Predators next season.
While hitting on a waiver claim like the Panthers did with Forsling is extremely rare, the Predators have to go out an upgrade through free agency or another trade. While a lot of money is tied up in some key players on the Panthers, the Predators have a lot of cap space to work with. They don't have to be as stingy with money when bringing in defensive depth like Ekman-Larsson, Mikkola, and Kulikov.
Ekman-Larsson was coming off a buyout by the Vancouver Canucks and it seemed like Kulikov's career was coming to an end before stepping up this season. In comparison, someone like Luke Schenn has to play a lot better than he did as his cap hit is higher than each of the three players on that Panthers defensive unit that were signed in free agency.
It's a good start that the Predators have the best defenseman between the two teams in Roman Josi, but he isn't getting any younger. The Panthers found a way to bring in defensemen who will contribute for team-friendly cap hits and it all came together. Either the Predators get better play from certain d-men within or they need to go out and find players who will play better.
Deep Forward Group
Florida had some of their most impactful and productive forwards on bargain deals including Carter Verhaeghe, Sam Reinhart, Sam Bennett, Evan Rodrigues, and Vladimir Tarasenko. The highest cap hit on the team was also $10 million AAV and Aleksander Barkov received the most second-place Conn Smythe Trophy votes this year.
With Filip Forsberg currently having the highest cap hit among forwards on the Predators, there likely won't be more than one player added for more money per year this summer. If there is, it won't be much higher.
The Panthers were strapped for cap. Nashville won't be. This doesn't mean it won't be well worth it to find and have players performing better than what they're being paid though. The Panthers had great depth and the Predators' depth wasn't too bad either. If they were a real Stanley Cup contender this season, more impactful moves would have been made at the deadline to really bolster the team.
Nashville will have a good mix of veterans and experience to go along with youth at forward when all is said and done this offseason. A player such as Luke Evangelista could also have a big breakout to make his entry-level deal look great. More scoring has to be brought in and that will create even better depth. With the right moves, the impact of the Predators forwards may not be too far off the stellar group assembled in Florida this year.