The competitive gap between Nashville Predators and everyone else is growing, not shrinking
Try hard to think of a time when you last expected the Nashville Predators to win a game. Not when you thought "maybe they'll win" or "I hope they win," but a time where you fully expected a competitive performance by the Preds to end in two points. Where you would have been genuinely shocked […]
Try hard to think of a time when you last expected the Nashville Predators to win a game.
Not when you thought "maybe they'll win" or "I hope they win," but a time where you fully expected a competitive performance by the Preds to end in two points. Where you would have been genuinely shocked by any other result.
How far back does your memory have to search? How long ago was it?
A few months? Last year? Two years ago?
When Peter Laviolette was the coach? Further than that?
It's not an exact science, but I doubt many in the fan base have felt anything close to "confidence" in the Preds in quite some time. Maybe in the wake of the 2017 Stanley Cup Final run, when the team plowed through the regular season on their way to the franchise's first ever Presidents' Trophy. Maybe during the 2018 first round matchup with the upstart Colorado Avalanche, when most people thought "the Preds are the better team, they will come out on top" and then they did.
Maybe it was during that next seven game series against the Winnipeg Jets. Two teams built for the long haul and forced with the unfortunate circumstance of playing what should have been the Western Conference Final a round too early.
After that, it's hard to find a time when competitive confidence would have been very high. In 2018-19, the Preds dominated early, but then made a few bad trades, a few bad lineup decisions, and lost in the first round for the first time in four years. That was the beginning of the end for Peter Laviolette, who had clearly lost the room, and was fired in early 2020.
New coach, same results
In 2020, the Preds went into a strange transition that David Poile called a "competitive rebuild" with new head coach John Hynes. The Covid-19 pandemic put hockey (and life) on hold, which prevented a clean start for Hynes and his staff. But then the 2020-21 and 2021-22 seasons gave him a real chance at developing a competitive roster, installing a defense-first system and acquiring some good young talent in exchange for aged, injured favorites.
But while it seems like Hynes and his staff are doing everything they can to turn it around, and with David Poile trying his best to manage a post-pandemic cap crunch after handing out lucrative contracts to post-prime players, the team is simply not as competitive as this fan base expects.
The "competitive rebuild" for Nashville has not worked, but that's old news. Three more first round exits after the last "competitive" Preds teams of the Laviolette era and it's clear this team is built neither for the regular season nor the playoffs.
But what's more, many of the public declarations about "mental toughness" and platitudes about hard work have made little difference.
Saying they want to "be hard to play against" has not actually resulted in the Preds being hard to play against. The team has emerged perhaps marginally more "mentally tough" on a nightly basis (don't forget they were in a bad place when Laviolette was fired; that took some leg work to dig out of) but their hockey smarts and inept special teams and poor offensive schemes seem to cancel all of that out.
The players do seem to be listening to head coach John Hynes and his staff. They don't seem checked out of games or unprepared. They just seem overwhelmed by the level of talent on the other side of the ice, and incapable of using their skill sets to make a difference in the outcome of games.
On that note, the Preds have not fared well against teams ahead of them in the standings, winning only six times in 18 games.
Just look at some of the results of those games and you'll see the Preds aren't close to competing with these teams. Back to back 4-1 and 3-1 losses to the Dallas Stars. A 5-3 loss to the Colorado Avalanche. A 5-1 loss to the Seattle Kraken. A 3-0 shutout to the Washington Capitals. And of course two blowout losses to the Edmonton Oilers by a combined scored of 13 to 7.
All of those opponents have god-like speed on offense, elite puck skills that can create space at both ends, and durable, stalwart defenses led by confident goaltending. A few of those teams even have all of those things at once. The management of those teams have drafted exceptional talent and provided development paths that have led to success in the NHL. The coaches of those teams have struck a careful balance of motivation, structure, and discipline that has allowed the team to thrive in a competitive environment.
The Nashville Predators do not have any of those things right now.
Where do the Preds go from here?
So what happens now? Are the Preds, like their nearby NFL brethren, at a "crossroads?"
It sure seems like it.
The Preds aren't consistently competitive against good teams in this league. Most of that seems due to a growing gap between their talent and the rest of the league. Or because of a gap between this coaching staff's mindset and a winning formula that actually works.
Consider that five of the Preds' twelve wins have come against Anaheim, Arizona, Vancouver, and San Jose, teams that are clearly in "lose now" mode. It's hard to feel encouraged by wins against teams with no qualms about losing, especially when the Preds seem overmatched by teams that actually give a damn about the result.
The schedule is not kind to the Preds, as they have eight games against teams ahead of them in the standings over their next twelve matchups. But it's really not about the schedule at all. It's about where this Nashville Predators team is at right now. They just do not seem to be anywhere close to competitive in today's NHL.
There have been stretches of quality performances. A three game winning streak in mid November, and another one in early December. But as the Preds sit currently in the middle of a five game losing streak, and with more difficult teams on the horizon, it's hard to see a way out.
So, yes, there should be some sort of change. There's little path for the Preds, with the current roster and organization where it is, that sees them suddenly becoming competitive. I mentioned all of this last year in an article titled "It's time for the David Poile era to end" which I still stand behind. Not much has changed since May.
As the memory of a once "hard to play against" hockey team continues to fade, I ask again for you to think back to when the team was truly competitive, and how much longer it might be until that memory disappears entirely.
— Featured image via James Carey Lauder/USA TODAY Sports —
