Three Games In, the New Predators Look a Lot Like the Old Ones

Nashville opened 2026–27 with a three-game losing streak, which is not a crisis yet but is exactly the wrong kind of early evidence for a front office that spent the summer arguing it had fixed things. Chris MacFarland brought in Mavrik Bourque and Ilya Lyubushkin from Dallas, signed Jack Drury to a five-year, $22.5 million deal, and sold the fanbase on depth and defensive stability. Three games is a small sample. It is also the only sample that exists right now, and it does not look like a stabilized team.

Ryan O'Reilly is doing his part — he is producing at 0.9 points per game, which is elite center production by any measure. The problem last season was that O'Reilly's output was never the issue. Nashville finished 38–45 because the players around him couldn't hold up their end consistently, and through three games that dynamic has not visibly changed. The new acquisitions were supposed to be the answer to that. So far they haven't been.

There is also a structural concern that the offseason did not address: Nashville still has no reliable second goaltender behind Juuse Saros. That was a known vulnerability going into the summer, and it remains one now. Saros can carry a team for stretches, but a 82-game season run on one goaltender is a fragile proposition, and the Predators learned that lesson the hard way in 2025–26.

None of this is a verdict on MacFarland. It is three games. But the Predators went 4–8 in October last year before December bailed them out, and they cannot afford to let another slow start become a hole to climb out of. The next ten days will tell more than the summer ever could.