Will the Predators and Kraken build off of strong starts?
After the first week of action across the NHL, two teams have had surprising starts to the season.
The Nashville Predators and Seattle Kraken, both of which finished near the bottom of the Central and Pacific Divisions, respectively, have opened up the 2025-26 campaign with a couple of solid victories.
The Preds have points in all three games thus far, beating the Columbus Blue Jackets in their season opener and Ottawa Senators, along with picking up a point in an overtime loss to the Utah Mammoth. Juuse Saros has looked solid between the pipes, with Nashville finding scoring from a variety of characters.
For Seattle, the team kicked off the new year last Thursday with a victory over the Anaheim Ducks, before catching many by surprise, defeating the Vegas Golden Knights last Saturday.
On Tuesday’s edition of Daily Faceoff Live, Tyler Yaremchuk and Carter Hutton give their thoughts on whether the Preds and Kraken are for real.
Tyler Yaremchuk: I really don’t think either one of these teams is gonna be able to do much to convince me they’re legit. Will you say the same, or do one of these two kind of stand out to you as maybe having some holding power?
Carter Hutton: I guess for me the team that potentially has a bit more holding power in my mind would be the Nashville Predators, just because some of the firepower up front. You look at [Filip] Forsberg and [Steven] Stamkos and Roman Josi being healthy.
I think goaltending being equal in the sense of Joey Daccord has really bloomed into a guy that is a potential outright star in this league, and he’s done a great job in Seattle. Juuse Saros, I expected him to have a bounce-back year. The Preds have a lot of value in them right I think Juuse Saros calms that whole situation down, and yes there’s different moving parts you have some older guys in that lineup with Marchessault, O’Reilly, Forsberg, Stamkos guys have been around a long time, but that being said if you can slot some younger town in there, some fresh legs, keep things moving forward, there is potential. Yes, it’s a star-studded Central Division. It’s going to be tough.
When I go out to Seattle, and I look at their roster…for me, just the lack of superstars, even in the making. I know Matty Beniers has done well, Jared McCann’s put up points, they just don’t really have that in a Pacific Division where it feels like you need star power to compete and stay in there. I look for Lane Lambert as the new head coach to bring a little more, I would say, non-negotiables to their lineup, where they’re going to be a little more consistent. I think they’re going to be in tighter games, but all things being equal, I just don’t know what their separator is going to be to continually find ways to win games against teams that are just littered with star players.
You can watch the full segment and entire episode here…