The Nashville Predators didn’t envision themselves referring to the 2024-25 season in the past tense this early.
A team filled with competitive players that began the campaign with high external expectations - and a strong belief amongst themselves - wasn’t able to play their way into a postseason berth for what would have been the 10th time in the last 11 years.
Instead, Preds players and their head coach answered questions on Friday afternoon about what went wrong, how to fix it and what to look forward to.
The discussions weren’t all doom and gloom - there is, of course, always some reason to be optimistic with a new season that will eventually arrive again - but this is a proud group, and unfortunately, most of the past 82 games won’t be remembered fondly.
“Nobody wants to be done at this point,” Preds Alternate Captain Filip Forsberg said. “You want to practice and prepare for a playoff game tomorrow instead of talking to [the media]. No disrespect, but it's certainly something that we want to get back to. [Bridgestone Arena] is probably the most electric place in the world to play in, especially in playoffs, and there’s nothing more fun than that. To miss out on that, it hurts a lot. Just got to use that as fire also.”
“We don't want to be here again, and we're a proud team,” Preds Head Coach Andrew Brunette said. “We’ve got some really great hockey players that have been through a lot of different things…and they're not feeling good, but we have to learn why and how… I'm looking forward to finding solutions.”
The Predators dropped their first five games before ultimately finishing with a 30-44-8 record. Although they felt themselves working back into the thick of the standings at times, they were never quite able to recover in a stretch that left them searching for answers more often than not.
Preds players were quick to take the blame for what ultimately went wrong, and they believe there’s plenty to learn from the adversity faced.
"Nobody's happy with the way the year went,” Preds Captain Roman Josi, who missed the final stretch of the season due to injury but expects to be ready for training camp, said. “I'm not happy with the way I played. I think the older you get, the more…sometimes things happen for you. I think it's time for you to grow, and time for you to get better, and maybe you have to adjust some things over the summer and even next year… I think you can look at it two ways, and I tried to look at it as a time to grow, time to become strong and come back stronger next year, and be better.”
“I think there were opportunities where we could have come together, and unfortunately, we didn’t,” Preds Alternate Captain Ryan O’Reilly said. “There’s lessons in that, and as a group, too. I think we dug ourselves a hole. We wanted to deviate. At times, we got kind of on our own page, and tried to do it our own way, and as you can see, it doesn't work. You can't build anything when we're all going different directions. Again, that's on myself. It's on us as a leadership group. We're mature, we're experienced, we've been through a lot. We should have been a lot better in that way… As a leadership group, I think we will obviously get together and talk more about that and find ways, but it definitely falls on us and myself. There's some changes that we have to be able to make on the fly and hold each other accountable, and if we’re doing it, the rest will fall [into place].”
O’Reilly also spoke of the weight of the expectations catching up with the group at different points throughout the season, but once they were out of playoff contention, that pressure seemed to subside. That feeling, O’Reilly says, needs to be more prevalent in the next iteration.
“Down the stretch, you could see once we got eliminated and we were out of it, you kind of feel like a weight was almost lifted,” O’Reilly, who will play for Canada at the upcoming IIHF World Championship, said. “Once we kind of got rid of that, we just went out and played a bit, and you could tell things were kind of starting to go away a bit more and we started to score a few more goals. Obviously, it wasn't great at the end, but we did some solid things, and I think there's something there to build off of. I know for myself, too, that's a feeling you want to come back, come in with that light feeling…and enjoying the game - a much better way than just trying to fight back into the playoffs. So, there's something there for sure that you can build off of.”
From here, the Predators will try to do just that - take the “no quit” attitude they showed down the stretch and use it to their advantage mentally.
Players will eventually depart Nashville for the summer - some sooner than others depending on family and living situations - and they’ll eventually leave the past six months exactly there, in the past.
Instead, as the days get warmer, the training will ramp up again with sights set on doing whatever it takes to not repeat the disappointment that came more than anyone would have liked.
“I believe in our group,” Brunette said. “I believe we're competitive people in a competitive environment, and we're not happy where we are. I expect them…to rebound, but it's going to take work. For me to say [this season was a] one-off, I can't, because we have to put the work in to make sure it's not a one-off and it's not going to repeat itself. That's sort of the message, because it's not going to be any easier… So, we have to ensure through our work, our commitment level, to be connected. It has to be high and has to go right from the start - has to be right from day one of [training] camp. We have to be ready to be committed, to being unified, to being connected if we want to make sure this isn't just a one-off.”
Yes, the regular season concluded just days ago, but the mind of a professional hockey player doesn’t need long to refocus - if only for a moment at this juncture - on what could be ahead.
And if the Preds have anything to do with it, they won’t be having these same discussions next spring - and certainly not this early on the calendar.
“I think it's a good situation as a team to come in and be a little bit of an underdog,” Preds forward Jonathan Marchessault said. “And we can surprise… It just shows how beautiful the game is. Any year, you just don't know who's going to be good. I think everybody can be better, and I think that's something that when you're a professional athlete, in an unbelievable organization like we have, I think everybody needs to be better. I think that's something that everybody's pretty excited to do.”
“As much as we'd like to change the outcome, there’s always positives,” Forsberg said. “There’s always opportunity for guys. A lot of guys got their first taste of the NHL, and [Matthew Wood] got to play a few games at the end. I thought everyone we called up throughout the season from Milwaukee did great for us, and I'm expecting big things from that group coming forward as well. And for us, the veterans and leadership group, we always take a hard look in the mirror and come back ready with fire. [We’ll be] ready to go and turn this around.”
