The Nashville Predators have endured slow starts in recent seasons.
Coach Andrew Brunette does not want to let that happen again. He is looking for his players to start fast when Nashville hosts the Minnesota Wild in the teams’ season opener Thursday night.
“We’ve got to throttle down here right away,” Brunette said. “And I think we’ve prepared ourselves to do that. We’re just going to execute that.”
The Predators brought in some new faces up front, including Mavrik Bourque, Ross Colton, Jack Drury, Adam Edstrom and Alex Kerfoot. Nashville is looking to improve upon last season, when it posted a 38-34-10 record but fell short of the postseason.
A couple more wins could have helped the Predators make the playoffs. That made their slow start sting even worse.
“The last couple years we just haven’t had (a good start),” defenseman Brady Skjei said. “We kind of dug ourselves a hole and couldn’t climb out of it. We were just too far behind. So, we want to be playing in the playoffs, and we need to have a good start and then just build off that throughout the year. We can’t dig ourselves a hole again.”
Nashville will welcome a Minnesota squad that also has high hopes for the 2026-27 campaign. The Wild went 46-24-12 last year and made the playoffs, knocking off the Dallas Stars in six games in the first round before losing to the Colorado Avalanche in five games in the second round.
Kirill Kaprizov finished with a team-high 45 goals to go along with 44 assists and wants to build upon those statistics.
“I want to do so much more than what I showed last year,” Kaprizov said.
He said points would come from succeeding in more non-glamorous plays.
“If I play my best game, it’s usually (because) I win battles,” he said. “You win battles and then somebody is open, or you win battles (and) you get chances yourself.”
Minnesota will have to produce chances without one of its best players. Top-line defenseman Brock Faber sustained a skull fracture in a preseason game and will be sidelined indefinitely following surgery.
Faber’s blueline partner, Quinn Hughes, said the Wild had no choice but to move forward while their popular teammate recovers.
“You’re going to miss him,” Hughes said. “But in saying that, we’ve got a good team. We’ve got a lot of depth, and we’ll just have to do our best. I think we’ve got a lot of great players in here.”
Juuse Saros is expected to start in net for Nashville. He has 230 career victories, and is looking to bounce back from a season in which he posted a 3.16 goals-against average and an .894 save percentage.
Saros has faced the Wild 16 times, posting a 10-3-3 record with a 2.50 GAA and a .921 save percentage.
Minnesota is expected to counter with Jesper Wallstedt, who will take over the No. 1 duties as Filip Gustavsson recovers from injury. Wallstedt went 18-9-6 with a 2.61 GAA in 35 games last season.
In one career game against Nashville, Wallstedt is 0-1-0 with a 2.10 GAA and a .909 save percentage.
Veteran Calvin Pickard, who spent the last three years in Edmonton, will back up Wallstedt.
