by The Nashville Predators’ season hasn’t been impressive, but a lot of that has to do with a lack of goals. No player is performing at the level they can offensively this season and that has resulted in the Predators being ranked 31st in points percentage and dead last in wins (7) despite solid goaltending from Juuse Saros.
The magic number for Nashville is four this season. The Predators have played 25 games and what do their losses have in common? The team scored three or fewer goals in each of them. In six of the seven wins, the Predators have scored four or more.
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The seventh instance occurred during the team’s second victory of the season in Game 7, where Nashville won by a score of 3–2 in regulation against the Chicago Blackhawks. They had a chance to score into an empty net, but it turns out that the Blackhawks are having just as much difficulty as Nashville in terms of goals.
If the Predators had scored four goals in every game, they would have outscored their opponents 11 more times. There are also two more matches where the score would have been tied 4-4. That means the Predators have allowed five or more goals in five of 25 games. It’s not horrible and every team has off nights defensively, but when you combine that with repeated bad nights offensively, the 2024-25 Predators are the result.
Nashville has lost six times in overtime this season out of the seven times the team has gone beyond regulation. Each defeat ended with a score of 3-2. It also happened three games in a row with losses to the Philadelphia Flyers, Tampa Bay Lightning and Minnesota Wild.
The Predators are struggling and even though the team just made a backup goaltender trade, it doesn’t help the lack of offense clearly needed to win games this season. I don’t expect Barry Trotz to be done, but time is running out and the Predators are no closer to the playoffs.
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