Back the Predators to pull off upset against Lightning on NHL’s opening night

The 2023-24 NHL season will get underway on Tuesday with a 5:30 p.m. ET puck drop between the Nashville Predators and Tampa Bay Lightning at Amalie Arena in Tampa. Fla. The Lightning are -170 favorites to win the game at the time of writing and the Over/Under is set at 6.5.

The big story with this game, and the early part of Tampa’s season, is the absence of Andrei Vasilevskiy. The Lightning’s all-world goaltender is out for the first two months of the campaign after he needed to have surgery on his back.

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There were plenty of people who already expected Tampa Bay to take a step back in 2023-24 and the Vasilevskiy news only added to that sentiment. The Atlantic Division projects to be the deepest in the NHL for the coming season, so none of the perennial favorites like Tampa Bay, Toronto or Boston can afford to stumble.

Expectations for the Predators are also pretty low coming into the new season, but there’s also a lot of intrigue around Nashville because of a regime change. Barry Trotz was hired last season to become just the second general manager in franchise history and he fired head coach John Hynes and replaced him with Andrew Brunette.

Trotz was also busy in the offseason signing plenty of experienced players like Ryan O’Reilly, Luke Schenn and Gustav Nyquist to provide stability and consistency to a roster that features a lot of young players in addition to some high-end talents like Roman Josi and Filip Forsberg, plus standout goaltender Juuse Saros.

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Saros is the key to this handicap. While the Lightning are the better team on paper and have more offensive upside than the Preds by quite a bit, Nashville’s edge in goal should help to close the gap. Saros has established himself as one of the best goaltenders in the league over the past few seasons and his counterpart, Jonas Johansson, has been largely ineffective during his brief NHL career. Johansson was decent for Colorado in three appearances in 2022-23, but his career numbers leave a lot to be desired.

Johansson owns an .887 save percentage and -24.1 Goals Saved Above Expected (GSAx) in 35 career appearances for Buffalo, Colorado and Florida.

The discrepancy between the two netminders opens up a path to an upset on Tuesday and I think the Preds are worth a bet at +140 or better.

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