What’s next for the Nashville Predators?

The Nashville Predators put up a good fight.

They went down 2-0 to the No. 1 seeded Carolina Hurricanes in their first-round series but battled back with a pair of double-overtime victories. Carolina would end up winning the series in six games with back-to-back overtime victories of their own.

So, what’s next for Nashville? This team has made it out of the first round of the playoffs just once since reaching the Stanley Cup Final back in 2017 and it’s fair to assume that general manager David Poile might be looking to shake things up.

Starting in net, @Juuse Saros has finally proved to be the guy. He posted a .927 save percentage in 36 regular-season games and was excellent for Nashville in the playoffs. 38-year-old @Pekka Rinne is a free agent and it’s probably time to move on.

The challenge for Nashville this season was scoring goals. This can largely be chalked up to some underachieving forwards.

@Roman Josi, a defenceman, led the Predators with 33 points. Next up after that was @Filip Forsberg, who scored 32 points in 39 games. Nashville’s pair of $8 million forwards, @Ryan Johansen and @Matt Duchene, scored 22 and 13 respectively.

Last off-season, the Preds cut a lot of dead weight by buying out @Nick Bonino and @Kyle Turris. Could something similar be in the cards for Duchene or Johansen?

With the expansion draft coming up, Poile could try to entice the Kraken into taking on one of those contracts, perhaps by offering up a prospect or a draft pick. That would give the team more room to sign @Mattias Ekholm and Forsberg to contract extensions. Both players are eligible to hit the open market at the end of 2021-22.