The signing of three of the best players available, Steven Stamkos, Jonathan Marchessault and Brady Skjei, made NHL free agency look like a huge win for the Nashville Predators.
They haven't had many since.
After committing more than $108 million in a matter of hours on July 1 and raising Stanley Cup expectations, the Predators are in last place in the league and off to their worst start in franchise history. They lost 10 of their first 14 games and had more penalty minutes than shots in their last loss.
“There's no going back and no changing from what happened, so you can't feel sorry for yourself,” Stamkos said after a 3-2 loss in Washington. “We are in the situation we are in and we have to find our way back. The guys in this locker room had a similar start to the season last year and found a way, and for us new guys, adjusting to the system is what lies ahead. I think as much as we wanted it to happen overnight, sometimes it doesn’t necessarily happen that way.”
There were a handful of shots in this Capitals game that hit one of the posts or the crossbar: near goals, and they don't count. And they haven't exactly inspired much confidence.
“There's obviously still frustration,” said veteran center Ryan O'Reilly, who unprompted pointed out that he hasn't scored a goal at 5-on-5 this season. “But at least we get these opportunities. If you look at the game beforehand, we didn’t get any chances.”
The previous game ended in a 3-0 home defeat against Los Angeles. The game following a 6-2 loss to the defending champion Florida Panthers.
Nashville's game lacks consistency and is replaced by frustration.
“The frustration seeped through a little bit,” said second-year coach Andrew Brunette, whose professional status will almost certainly be in dispute if the loss continues. “I think frustration is sometimes confused in our minds with work and effort.”
Brunette, who played 1,159 games in the league and took over as interim coach of the Panthers when they had the NHL's best regular season in 2021-22, isn't worried about the initial boost in performance. He said winning at this level is about second, third and fourth tries.
Stamkos, who played 16 seasons for Tampa Bay and was captain when the Lightning won back-to-back Cups in 2020 and 2021, doesn't question how hard he and his teammates work. He wondered if they sometimes work hard but “don’t necessarily work smart.”
Nashville outscores its opponents 445-411 but is outnumbered 50-33. Part of this comes from defensively shirking responsibility to achieve goals that were not achieved.
“A lot of times when you don't score, you fall back into habits that allowed you to score in the past,” Brunette said. “It took us a little bit to the edge and it took us further and further away from the net, and when you're further and further away from the net, you're probably further and further away from scoring goals.”
Stamkos finally scores. He scored three goals in four games, after only one in the first 10. The team success failed to materialize.
One constant is the play-in goal from Juuse Saros, who signed an eight-year extension in the offseason worth just under $62 million that keeps the franchise goaltender under contract through 2033. He has allowed 2.85 goals per game with a .904 save percentage, which is damaged by some of what happens in front of him, as evidenced by Saros saving 95 goals above the league average.
“He’s a rock for us,” Stamkos said. “As bad as our record was, without him it might have been even worse. … We know how solid he is there and we’re lucky to have him.”
The Predators also had some bad luck as a team. They scored on just 7.4% of their shots, which is second-worst in the league and ahead of only the Edmonton Oilers, who also struggled early.
Edmonton's poor start a year ago, which led to the firing of the coach and the hiring of Kris Knoblauch, which helped them advance to Game 7 of the Finals, is cause for optimism for Nashville. But this is also the time of year when the Oilers' fortunes begin to change, and the Predators know there's an urgency to figure things out sooner rather than later.
“We need results and we need them now,” said O’Reilly, who won the Cup with St. Louis in 2019. “We have to stick with it.” I don't know if patience is the right word, but we need this desperation and we have to keep working. It's not like everyone is going it alone and trying to go rogue. It's about sticking together and relying on each other to get out of this situation. We know we will.”