Man, am I sad that I have to write this piece. It brings me no pleasure to talk negatively about Mattias Ekholm; he is, after all, my favorite Nashville Predator of all time. But for the sake of objectivity, I’m going to have to do just that.
For the past few years, defensive depth and quality have always been strengths for the Nashville Predators. Stars like P.K. Subban and Roman Josi were complemented by excellent, underrated players in Ekholm and Ryan Ellis.
But with the departure of Subban in this past offseason and the replacement of him with an unproven piece in Dante Fabbro, it created some uncertainty about the construction of this part of the roster for the first time in many years.