Nashville Predators: 5 burning questions for 2018-19 season

2. Can the defense somehow get better?

The Predators relied on their defense to carry a large portion of their offense. A whopping 21 percent of their 261 goals last season came from the backend. P.K. Subban, Roman Josi, and Mattias Ekholm all finished with double digit goals. Subban and Josi each put up 50-plus points, helping lead Nashville to the highest scoring blueline in the league.

With everyone back in the mix for 2018-19, there is no real hole on their defense. Only the Tampa Bay Lightning boast a blueline comparable to Nashville’s. If Tampa adds Erik Karlsson, they leap the Smashville Six for best defensive corps in the league. As it stands, Nashville slightly edges them out.

About the only thing the Preds defensive group does poorly is give up too many shots. They gave up 32.4 shots against per game last season, 11th highest in the league. For reference, the Lightning gave up 32.7 shots against. The quantity matters little compared to the quality.

According to Natural Stat Trick, Nashville was seventh in scoring chances against. If that isn’t impressive enough, Rinne and Saros combined to post the highest save percentage on scoring chances. So, even when the defense broke down and gave up a high quality chance, their goaltending was there to bail them out.

The one area of improvement for Subban and company would be on the power play. The Preds were 12th on the man advantage in 2017-18. A respectable finish, but they should be in the top ten with their firepower. Either Ekholm and Ellis need to make more of their time or Subban and Josi have to do a better job of getting shots through or finding teammates.

Back to the question. Can the defense get better? Of course they can. Every team and every player can get better. Even you, Connor McDavid.