Nashville's Offseason Is Done. The Proving Starts Now.

The moves are in. Mavrik Bourque is signed for six years at $33 million, Jack Drury is locked up for five, Ilya Lyubushkin is here to shore up a blue line that bled goals all season, and Wyatt Cullen is the 10th overall pick waiting in the pipeline. MacFarland had a busy summer. What he doesn't have yet is a win.

The problem he inherited was specific: O'Reilly put up 45 points in 50 games and it still wasn't enough, because the drop-off after him was severe. Forsberg managed 35 points in the same span, and after that the offense essentially ran out of ideas. Stamkos chipped in 32 goals and assists combined but finished at –10. Roman Josi logged over 23 minutes a night and ended up –11. The veteran core was working; the roster around it wasn't. That's the gap Bourque and Drury are supposed to close.

Whether they do is genuinely unknown. Bourque is 24 and comes with real upside, but he's never been asked to carry secondary scoring duties on a team with playoff expectations. Drury is a faceoff specialist being paid like a top-six contributor. Lyubushkin adds toughness to a defense that needed it, but toughness didn't fix the plus-minus numbers last year. The acquisitions are logical. They are not guaranteed.

Training camp will tell us something. My read is that the first real test is whether Bourque can play alongside O'Reilly without simply inheriting the same problem — a good center surrounded by not quite enough. MacFarland has addressed the depth chart on paper. Nashville needs it to show up on the ice.