Secondary scoring has been almost nonexistent for the Predators this season. The team’s top line of Filip Forsberg, Ryan O’Reilly and Gustav Nyquist have been together all season and have driven play and been responsible for most of the team’s offense.

Head coach Andrew Brunette has tried multiple combinations of forwards on the other lines attempting to find some chemistry and scoring. For the team to have any hope of making the playoffs, they need goals from others.

One player who Brunette might be looking to is Tommy Novak. After scoring 17 goals in 51 NHL games last season, Novak hasn’t found the same magic this season. He missed 11 games from mid-November to early December due to an upper-body injury. Now healthy, Novak may be finding his stride.

In Nashville’s last game before the break, he recorded an assist and did everything but score a goal. In the team’s first game after the break, he scored and then set up Ryan McDonagh’s overtime-winning goal with a strong play, taking on two defenders before slipping a pass to McDonagh in the slot.

“He made an unbelievable play in overtime and that’s the Novy that you’re used to seeing,” Brunette says. “We’ve seen it in spurts. Hopefully this gives him a little boost in the arm. Hopefully this catapults him back to the level that he’s capable of producing. I hope he can grab some confidence. We moved him around and he responded.”

The fact Brunette had the confidence to utilize Novak in overtime should be meaningful to the player. With teams skating 3-on-3 in overtime, ice time is at a premium, so coaches are not only looking at who might be able to find a goal for their own team, but also keep the puck out of their own net in the process.

Novak, who will turn 27 in late April, presents an interesting dilemma for general manager Barry Trotz as an unrestricted free agent at season’s end. Not young by NHL standards, there might be some teams kicking Trotz’s tires on Novak as the trade deadline approaches due to his scoring potential. But with a limited sample size at the NHL level of just over 100 games played, Novak’s value is still a question.

Novak is one of a number of Predator forwards who are set to become unrestricted free agents after the season. In addition to Novak, Yakov Trenin, Kiefer Sherwood, Denis Gurianov and Michael McCarron all may be elsewhere next season.

Right now, it’s a little hard to imagine that Trotz and the Predators would look to lock Novak up long term, but a strong performance down the stretch might go a long way to him earning another contract.