The Predators are coming out of what coach Andrew Brunette called his team\u2019s \u201cworst effort of the year by far\u201d in their 6-0 loss to the Bruins. He had some harsh words for his players after Thursday\u2019s loss, per NHL.com\u2019s Joe McDonald<\/a>:<\/p>\n \u201cWe need a few more guys playing hockey. We had too many passengers tonight and probably almost all of them. It\u2019s disappointing. We knew coming in this is a big stretch of hockey, a big month for our group. We knew that, but we forgot to play hockey tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s early, but Nashville\u2019s 3-3-3 start is underwhelming for a team that had the goal of retooling into a contender this summer after Chris MacFarland was hired<\/a> to succeed Barry Trotz as the team\u2019s general manager in June. Longtime Predator Filip Forsberg called MacFarland\u2019s hiring \u201ca breath of fresh air\u201d after the GM started off his tenure by making nine trades in five months, per The Athletic\u2019s Pierre LeBrun<\/a>.<\/p>\n A few key aspects of the Predators remained the same this offseason, however. Brunette, who has led the Predators to a 118-111-26 record across parts of four seasons, is still in place as head coach. And the team\u2019s veteran core of Steven Stamkos, Roman Josi, Filip Forsberg and Ryan O\u2019Reilly is back for another run together.<\/p>\n Whether these four players, who currently sit atop the Predators production leaderboard, remain in Nashville this season looks like a similar situation to that of players like Rickard Rakell and Erik Karlsson in Pittsburgh\u2014 should the team drop out of postseason contention entirely, they could potentially be on the trade block this winter.<\/p>\n O\u2019Reilly is a pending UFA next season. Incumbent 42-goal scorer Stamkos has two years remaining on his deal, although he said<\/a> last season there was \u201czero\u201d chance he would waive his full no-movement clause for a trade. The Predators may need to prove they can compete for a higher spot in the Central Division in order to keep either from becoming the subject of trade rumors down the stretch of the season.<\/p>\n Speaking of the power play, the Penguins will have plenty of motivation not to take any unnecessary penalties tonight. The Predators rank fourth in the NHL with a 28.6 scoring rate on the man advantage. The penalty kill is also humming along at an 83.3 success rate, which ties with the Penguins for seventh-best in the league.<\/p>\n That hasn\u2019t been enough to cover for the team\u2019s struggles at even strength. The Preds have tallied an NHL-low<\/a> 10 goals at 5v5 through their first nine games of the season.<\/p>\n The Predators could prevent a good test for a Penguins defense that is coming off one of the unit\u2019s stronger performances of the season against the Panthers. The Pens are looking to improve at even strength after having allowed<\/a> the fifth-most 5v5 goals against in the NHL with 26 through 11 games.<\/p>\n Tommy Novak – Sidney Crosby – Rickard Rakell<\/p>\n Ville Koivunen – Hendrix Lapierre – Evgeni Malkin (?)<\/p>\n Andrei Kuzmenko – Blake Lizotte – Rutger McGroarty<\/p>\n Elmer Soderblom – Connor Dewar – Nick Robertson<\/p>\n Spencer Stastney \/ Erik Karlsson<\/p>\n Declan Carlile \/ Kaeden Korczak<\/p>\n Ilya Solovyov \/ Kris Letang<\/p>\n Goalies: Arturs Silovs and Sergei Murashov<\/p>\n Potential Scratches: Sam Girard (day to day), Egor Chinakhov (day to day, lower body), Chase Pietila, Avery Hayes (?)<\/p>\n IR: Ryan Graves, Justin Brazeau, Trevor van Riemsdyk, Bryan Rust (lower body), Ben Kindel<\/p>\n Neither Egor Chinakhov (lower body) nor Evgeni Malkin (illness) participated<\/a> in Friday\u2019s practice. It looks like Rutger McGroarty saw some power play time in Malkin\u2019s absence:After shuffling the lines ahead of Thursday\u2019s shoutout of the Florida Panthers, the Penguins might be forced to make some more changes should Malkin need more time to recover despite seeing some early chemistry between him and Hendrix Lapierre on the second line.On that note, Avery Hayes was scratched<\/a> from the Wilkes-Barre\/Penguins\u2019 Friday lineup. Coach Kirk MacDonald said after the game Hayes had been called up to Pittsburgh, per Inside AHL Hockey\u2019s Tony Androckitis.<\/a> Hayes has yet to make his season debut after appearing in 16 games of the Penguins\u2019 2025-26 campaign.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Who: Nashville Predators (3-3-3, 9 points, 7th Central Division) @ Pittsburgh Penguins (4-6-1, 9 points, 6th place Metropolitan…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":893233,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[128082,385,99],"class_list":["post-893232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-game-preview","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=893232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893232\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/893233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=893232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=893232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=893232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Screenshot-2026-10-24-at-12.40.32-AM.png\"\/)
<\/a>Stamkos, who is 29 goals behind Sidney Crosby for the second-most among active players, is two power play goals shy of tying Phil Esposito\u2019s career mark of 246 for the sixth most in NHL history. He has tied for the team lead with four goals in nine games, including a 6-on-5 buzzer-beater in what was ultimately a shootout loss to the San Jose Sharks last week.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/kgbtds7gtdr8ocfx7mbk.jpg\"\/)
<\/a><\/p>\n