Injuries Forcing Lineup Decisions in Nashville
Roman Josi out; Nic Hague and Jonathan Marchessault coming back for Predators
Big injury news landed in Nashville as the team announced that captain and star defenseman Roman Josi will be out week to week with an upper body injury. For a Predators team trying to build some momentum early in this season the timing could not be much worse. Nashville’s defense has been performing better as a unit both at even strength and especially on the penalty kill. In fact, the Predators have started this season killing penalties at an 89.3% rate, good for 5th in the NHL. So taking their top defenseman off the ice for an extended period of time will create ripple effects across the lineup. At the same time, defenseman Nic Hague and forward Jonathan Marchessault are set to return to the lineup from their respective injuries so head coach Andrew Brunette will be faced again with finding lineup combinations that will keep the team moving forward.
On defense, the adjustment may be as simple as Nic Hague stepping into Josi’s spot on the top pairing alongside Adam Wilsby. This was the initial approach in the first morning skate without Roman Josi in attendance. While that is the least disruptive to the rest of defense corps it asks a whole lot of Hague, who has not played a game yet this season, and Wilsby, who has not had to serve as the primary puck mover on his pair. Andrew Brunette could also manage that responsibility by making Brady Skjei and Nick Perbix the de facto top pair until Nic Hague is fully up to speed. When Josi does return, there will be some very interesting decisions as Wilsby, Spencer Stastney and Justin Barron have all shown noticeable improvement in their respective second full seasons in Nashville.
Offensively the decisions are a little more complex. Obviously Jonathan Marchessault will re-enter the lineup as soon as he’s ready but who comes out is not a simple answer. The seemingly least disruptive option would be Matthew Wood, who was just recalled from Milwaukee and occupies a top 6 forward spot. But in his first game in Nashville he led all Predators players with 4 scoring chances, all of the high danger variety. Given Nashville’s offensive struggles it would seem relevant to keep Wood in the lineup. Next would be Tyson Jost, who has been a steadying player next to Fedor Svechkov but has a limited ceiling in terms of his offensive impact. But if you take Jost out of the lineup, does Marchessault take that spot with Svechkov and Evangelista or does he return to the vet pest line where he was so impactful? If the latter then Steven Stamkos would have to either move Wood off the top line or slide back onto a line with Svechkov. None of these options are necessarily bad, but none of them just stand out as “obvious”.
In general, having too many NHL capable players is overall a good thing. The Predators have already been impacted multiple times by injuries so being able to plug in different players and keep moving forward is important. Looking forward, performance on the ice and results in the standings will go a long way to determining who remains on the roster and in the lineup nightly. If the Predators fall down the standings then those extra NHL capable players can become potential trade assets to continue the Predators build. At the same time Zach L’Heureux, Reid Schaefer, Tanner Molendyk and Ryan Ufko are all up in Milwaukee continuing their push for a regular NHL spot. process. While there are some crucial lineup decisions early in the season, it will be a storyline worth watching all the way to the spring.
Statistics courtesy of NHL.com and Natural Stat Trick