The Predators' Present Run In Context

I don’t have time to write a blog today, so consider this my first official OtF Fan Post.

I’m gonna be a little harsh here, so please forgive my tone (and amyinsparta, this is not solely directed at you), but this kind of talk has to stop. It’s a perception that has falsely been perpetuated by outside media forces and has no business being even suggested as fact among those within the Preds fanbase.

ALL of ANY truly ‘good to great hockey players’ that Nashville has allegedly supplied to other teams were lost as a DIRECT result of Leipold’s fire sale. I defy anyone to name a single star — or even potential star player — who left this team because Poile refused to meet his pay demands.

Each and every star player the team shed in the wake of the 2006-07 season: Kariya, Forsberg, Timonen, Hartnell, and ESPECIALLY Vokoun, loved our city and expressed a desire to remain in Nashville.

However, as Sam points out, Poile was under direct orders by Leipold to get rid of or not offer contracts to ALL of them. If you want to find a villain here, it’s the Minnesota Wild owner, not David Poile or the current ownership group.

Others in more recent years, such as Zidlicky and Zannon, basically wore out their welcome with demands to be overpaid for their true worth in the Predators system. That’s as close as it comes to finding ‘great’ players who wanted out. Scotty Nichol, Vern Fiddler and Jed Ortmayer were good role players and great teammates, however they were not worth keeping, given the prospects whose spots in the organization they were blocking. Other than that, who ya gonna name? Adam Hall, fergawdsakes? Dan Ellis? Chris Mason? They were all great guys (well, maybe except Ellis), but they weren’t stars and certainly weren’t better then the players who replaced them.

Even Jason Arnott expressed deep regret in that he knew he needed to go — which he acknowledged publically — and yet has never uttered a single ill word about his time in Nashville since being traded last summer. Money had nothing to do with it — he was still under contract for this season, but how awkward would it have been to have the ‘C’ yanked from him and still be in the lineup? He HAD to go. And even I, as one of his biggest supporters, knew that and accepted it. Could we use him now on the power play? Sure. Would it have been worth it to hold Shea Weber back from his rightful spot as Captain for even one more season? NO, in my and a lot of other’s opinion.

And please don’t mention Dan Hamhuis. His inflated ego has been a bur in Poile’s ass since his first veteran contract; he held out on that and EVERY SINGLE ONE since that he signed with the Preds. Sure they wanted to keep him, but no one with any hockey brains would say he was worth the money Vancouver threw at him.

Scotty Upshall is the only prospect that the Preds have willingly sent packing who then immediately began paying dividends for his new team. But look who we got for him — a future Hall of Famer, Peter Forsberg.

So, see how silly that ‘Nashville can’t hold onto players’ argument sounds when held up to the light?

Here’s the upshot:

Given their success this season DESPITE all the injuries, does anyone NOT believe that the Preds would have been a powerhouse if guys like Lombardi, Bouillon and Goc had been in the lineup the whole year? Injuries are a part of the game, and receiving more than your fair share of them in no way invalidates a system, coaching philosophy, or financial reality of an NHL hockey club.

The Preds don’t need a new coach. They don’t need a new offensive scheme. They need to stay the course, keep fighting, and hopefully get a little luck at some point along the way. It is a very slippery slope to negotiate when changing hockey systems. The Preds were ahead of the curve coming out of the lockout, with their speed and forechecking style; the only thing they’ve not been able to assimilate is the truly talented sniper.

Oh, wait. We had one, but he was a traitor by anyone’s description. AND Radulov was still under contract. He WOULD have been paid; he just wouldn’t play by the rules.

But look what the Preds HAVE built: arguably the league’s best defense and goaltending, all the while remaining competitive and a playoff-quality club.

However, just BEING in a position to draft the great scorers is not something that’s easily done without torpedoing the the level of competitiveness the Preds have maintained over the years — which they HAD to do to keep butts in seats in a fledgling hockey market.

People ask why can’t we get guys like Alex Ovetchkin, or Sidney Crosby, or Jonathan Toews? Here’s why: the difference between Nashville and teams like Washington, Pittsburgh, Chicago, et al, is that we have NEVER sucked like they did, or were as bad for as long a period of time as they were, to be eligible to GET the Ovetchkins, Crosbys, and Toews’ of the world come Draft Day. All those players and each of those organizations paid a huge price — willingly or otherwise — to position themselves to receive those transformational types of offensive players; nevermind being lucky enough in the lottery that determines the order in which they pick. THAT is a price, ladies and gentlemen, that Nashville COULD NOT AFFORD to pay. We HAVE to remain mindful of that.

Something else we need to remember? There are a HELLUVA lot of other teams in the league who haven’t had deep playoff-round success. But what most of them do have is an established fanbase.

We just got back from St. Louis, a team who has qualified for ONE playoff round since before the lockout. They have flat out SUCKED folks, yet they have seasons on end of consecutive home sellouts. Why? Is it because their fans are delusional? No, it’s because their fans are GENERATIONAL. They’ve been filling their buildings for three generations since the 1967 expansion. They’re not better fans than we are. They’re better INDOCTRINATED than we are. They have NO STANLEY CUPS —NONE; only ONE trip to the Cup finals in their 43 years of existence, yet the dude with the towel is still at every game, runnin’ down the aisle, trying to whip his mates into a frenzy.

Think about that the next time you grow tired of ‘just making it to the playoffs,’ EVERY. FREAKING. SEASON.

This organization is no longer in danger of being swept away to Canada, or of going broke. We have EVERYTHING as fans to be proud of and to be hopeful for. Again, the pipeline is STOCKED, y’all! This is a GREAT time to be a Nashville Predators fan, regardless of what happens over the next six weeks.

We’ll get to the promised land, soon enough.