There was some thought the last few seasons that the Nashville Predators were at risk of dropping into irrelevance.

Their core was aging, their results were thinning out. They fired the coach, then they traded away a couple of key players (the latter moves proving rather unpopular with the boys in the dressing room). But Predators general manager David Poile would not commit to a full rebuild, with the club terming the trades of Ryan Ellis and Viktor Arvidsson a "reset" and the team barely making the playoffs last season with an eighth-place finish.

But what was interesting is that the team got to that not-so-lofty 97-point season total on the back of an elite goaltending performance (Juuse Saros ended with the ninth-highest goals saved above expected in the league) and some point totals tha