There is a lot of cautious optimism around the Nashville Predators early in the 2026-27 season. Despite a couple inauspicious team performances, the Predators have found timely goal scoring and most importantly, improved goaltending from Juuse Saros which have led to Nashville earning points in 4 of their 5 games. The cloud looming over this optimism is the performance of Nashville’s defense corps. As a unit overall they are bleeding quality scoring chances game over game. While the eye test certainly shows the struggles the underlying metrics are particularly revealing and that is no more visible than with captain Roman Josi.
From a counting stats perspective, Roman Josi is off to a very solid start with 1 goal and 5 points over the first four games. However all four of his assists have come on the power play and his individual contributions offensively at even strength have been minimal. A large portion of this (as you can see in the table below) is that despite starting his shifts in the offensive zone 72% of the time, Josi’s pairings are getting absolutely shelled. Even in a season where defenses league wide are struggling, Josi sitting at 30% possession, 22% scoring chances and 25% expected goals is shocking. Would I expect this to even out as play settles down across the league? Yes. But even in a small sample size it is clear that the defense partners for Josi just aren’t working.
The upside is that we already know what the archetypal defense pair for Roman Josi looks like and his name is Dante Fabbro. Now, we don’t need to re-litigate that waivers decision because it won’t get us anywhere. However what we can learn is the type of player that enabled Josi to be at his peak. During his time in Nashville Fabbro did a couple things very well that serve a player of Josi’s talents. First, Dante Fabbro is excellent at denying zone entry at the blue line. Because of this, when Josi joined the rush up ice multiple forwards could cover the middle and opposite side of the blue line because Fabbro held it down on his side. If the play did get through, Fabbro is a strong enough skater to regroup and defend. Second, Fabbro is a capable puck carrier and passer. This ensured that Josi did not have to be the player leading the breakout and feeding the forwards so he could jump up in the rush and create from the front of the play, not just behind it.
The Predators potentially have this type of player in Ryan Ufko. He’s a strong skater and puck carrier with excellent offensive instincts but his defensive game hasn’t progressed to the point Dante Fabbro’s was during that magical season. If GM Chris MacFarland wanted to take a BIG swing then Simon Edvinsson would certainly fit the bill but the cost would be significant. The real question is how patient Chris MacFarland is willing to be in letting an existing player try to prove themselves vs finding a solution somewhere else. Either way, the Predators need to find an answer to Josi’s defense partner very soon.