MacFarland Spent the Summer Fixing the Exact Problem That Broke Nashville

The Predators finished 38–44 last season because Ryan O'Reilly couldn't carry a thin supporting cast alone. That was the whole story. O'Reilly posted 45 points in 50 games; Forsberg, the second option, managed 35 in the same number of games; and the drop-off after that was steep enough to make the offense functionally dependent on two players who were never going to outscore Nashville's defensive problems. Roman Josi logged over 23 minutes a night and finished at –11. Stamkos was –10. The team gave up more than it scored all season long.

MacFarland addressed it directly. Mavrik Bourque, 24, comes in on a six-year deal and slots into the center depth behind O'Reilly and Stamkos—a younger option who doesn't need to be a star, just reliable. Jack Drury, signed for five years at $22.5 million, is a faceoff specialist who adds the kind of functional forward depth Nashville was missing at every level of the lineup last year. Ilya Lyubushkin arrives to help a blue line that was badly in the red most of the season. And with the 10th overall pick, Nashville added Wyatt Cullen—insurance against the reality that this core is aging.

The offseason logic is clean. The execution was quick. Whether it works is a different question, and one that won't have an answer until well into next season. But MacFarland identified the right problem and moved on it, which is more than could be said for the roster that sleepwalked through October and November before briefly waking up in December and then going quiet again.