Defensive Priorities in Nashville
Chris MacFarland's biggest job of the offseason is figuring out the Predators' defense
New Nashville Predators president of hockey operations Chris MacFarland has a laundry list of items to tackle in his first months on the job. He has to evaluate the front office (already in progress) and coaching staff, prepare for the NHL draft and free agency in a couple weeks, plus determine a path forward for a roster in the midst of transition. When it comes the roster, most of the attention naturally turns to the multiple veteran players who have been in trade rumors for over a year and could net sizable asset returns. But there also appears to be a more clear direction with multiple prospects seeing significant NHL ice time last season. The bigger job for Chris MacFarland is figuring out what to do with the Predators’ defense corps.
The Nashville Predators defense has been difficult to analyze in a comprehensive fashion. Analytically, they are… fine. Yes the Predators give up a ton of shots (6th most at 5v5) but when you look at expected goals and high danger chances they rank 14th and 21st most, respectively. That’s not too bad. In terms of defensive zone time, the Predators ranked 5th in the NHL. That’s pretty good! All together the defensive metrics might not be world beating, but its not terrible by any means. At the same time, however, the eye test saw the Predators struggle with zone exits and spend long stretches of time in their own end. So when they’re working together it goes well, but if anything gets out of sync the results go downhill quickly. Also, after Roman Josi’s 55 points the next closest contributor was Brady Skjei with all of 26 points. That is simply not good enough. To be a contending team your defense has to be more of an offensive threat than that. Without a clear identifier for the Predators defensive inconsistency the resulting viewpoint is that its a collection of players that don’t quite fit together.
The upside is the Predators have a number of good players still ascending. Adam Wilsby has shown a real ability to produce at the NHL level and he’s still only 25 years old. Ryan Ufko parlayed his strong close to the season into a role on Team USA’s World Championships team. Cameron Reid just finished an excellent season captaining his Kitchener Rangers team to the Memorial Cup championship. Tanner Molendyk and Andrew Gibson are both growing their games at the AHL level and look to be ready for a taste of NHL action soon. Even the oft-maligned Justin Barron had some of the best offensive metrics among the Predators defense corps. That is a very deep group of potential contributors where they don’t all have to have to hit for the Predators future defense to be in good shape.
The challenge for Chris MacFarland is that each of Roman Josi, Brady Skjei and Nic Hague are signed for at least two more seasons plus Nick Perbix has another year on his contract as well. With four of the six defensive slots occupied by veteran’s with term remaining, how will MacFarland create opportunities for the rising prospects? The move that makes the most sense would be to find a way out of Brady Skjei’s contract but that would seemingly almost take an act of Congress. Chris MacFarland is known to be a bold GM who isn’t afraid of the big decision but it will be interesting to see just how far he is willing to go to untangle the defensive mess.
