Special thanks to HousecatsNSH on Twitter for the incredible cover image.
Everyone who loves the Predators is excited for this season. After we all expected a full rebuild, GM Barry Trotz and Andrew Brunette came in and gave the team a full makeover in one calendar year, and with the acquisitions of Steven Stamkos, Brady Skjei and Jonathan Marchessault this summer, we fans have a lot to look forward to.
But let’s be honest: positivity is great and all, but nothing feels better than being a hater, and today I’m here to give you some great reasons to wish for nothing but the worst for some other NHL teams. Some of the reasons make sense because of acquired draft picks, some of them are because of grudges (I’ll heal in hell), and some are just because pettiness is fun. So let’s take a look.
The Tampa Bay Lightning
Type of Hatred: Professional
The Lightning have accidentally become Nashville’s closest allies lately, and unfortunately, seeing Tampa fall apart this season is great for the Predators draft stock. Nashville already made the offer that made Steven Stamkos leave Amelie Arena (as a former Tampa resident, it’ll ALWAYS be the Ice Palace to me) for Bridgestone arena this season, but it’s two other moves made in the last couple of seasons that require us to cheer against the Bolts.
Of course, the first one is the still-baffling Tanner Jeannot trade back in February of 2023. Tampa got Jeannot for Cal Foote, three 2023 draft picks, a second round pick last year, and a first round pick this upcoming draft. If that wasn’t enough, this May, Tampa then send took Ryan McDonagh and the entirety of his contract (plus a 4th round pick) in exchange for a 2nd round pick in the upcoming draft. The Predators have five picks in the first two rounds of the 2025 draft, and Tampa is responsible for two of them. So yeah, they need to suck this season.
The Vegas Golden Knights
Type of Hatred: Professional
Despite the fact that Vegas didn’t trade directly with Nashville, the Predators also have a stake in the Golden Knights’ downfall next season. As part of the Yaroslav Askarov trade, San Jose sent former first round pick David Edstrom and a protected first-round pick in the upcoming draft to Smashville. Edstrom and the pick both came from San Jose trading Tomas Hertl to Vegas in March, and now they’ve made their way to Nashville.
What makes this one a little more complicated is the “protected” status of the first rounder. It is top-ten protected, meaning if Vegas somehow manages to end up in the top ten of the 2025 NHL draft via the lottery, San Jose can send Nashville their own pick instead if it ends up lower than Vegas’. San Jose is not going to be good next season, and despite everything, I’m still pulling for Askarov, so we really don’t have to hope the Sharks will be bad – they probably will be. So instead we focus on Vegas – and apparently most people already hate them anyways, so this should be an easy pick.
That Team in Chicago
Type of Hatred: Personal
In the fall of 2021, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) issued an order to the general public that was something most people had never seen before: the government urged citizens to deal with the invasive species with a “kill on sight” order, turning all of our James Bond or Arthur Morgan dreams into reality.
The insects made their way from China to the United States as well as other Pacific Rim countries and is a massive threat to the ecosystems they have invaded. While they didn’t pose an immediate threat to kill trees (yet), they can have an enormous impact on agriculture – killing trees, plants, and orchards. So the USDA urged citizens to stomp, smash and otherwise kill these insects on sight, as well as scraping any eggs people might see into the trash.
What does this have to do with Chicago? Well, the spotted lanternfly is a pest that isn’t immediately dangerous at the moment, but causes mayhem, unhappiness, and frankly, evil if left uncontained. We’ve seen what kind of evil Chicago is capable of in the past, so we must all do our part now to hate them unconditionally and stomp them out while they’re still weak.
The Washington Capitals
Type of Hatred: Personal
I’ve been mostly ambivalent about the Capitals in the past, especially now that Peter Laviolette has moved on, but they did something this summer that hurt me to my very core: they purchased CapFriendly, a website that was created for all NHL fans (and teams, apparently) to check out the salary cap status of the NHL teams and was an infinitely useful tool in analysis for fans and writers like me alike. And while the data itself was useful, it also featured a trade tool as well as articles that broke down how the NHL’s Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) worked and was such a great tool in understanding how the business side of the league worked.
We do have the wonderful PuckPedia as a replacement, but the selfish Washington Capitals took a beloved tool away from us by shutting it down and (rightfully) hiring the creators to work in their organization, but again, I’m petty. So sorry Ovi, I hope you get the scoring record on the way to a bottom-five finish next season because there’s nothing more evil than taking a website full of numbers away from a nerd like myself.
The Anaheim Ducks
Type of Hatred: Personal
The Western Conference Finals seem like a lifetime ago. Nashville has flirted with mediocrity in the seasons since while the Ducks have been (rightful) basement-dwellers in the meantime, and what was a heated rivalry in the moment has all but cooled to nothing these days. True, the above human dumpster fire that is Corey Perry remains in the league, but he also carries the hilarious distinction of being on the losing team in the Stanley Cup Finals four years in a row with Dallas, Montreal, Tampa Bay and Edmonton.
So while a lot of the reasons for this rivalry have disappeared, I enjoy pettiness – especially in the way of teasing my friends over at Anaheim Calling, especially my good buddy who goes by “Justice for Rusty”. While I don’t like divulging this secret, he’s a great dude and I’d say we’re pretty good friends, but today my friend crossed a line on Twitter:
To be fair, I started this interaction and we’re performatively mean to each other all the time because that’s how guys express their friendships. Plus, I know he doesn’t mean it truly, but like I’ve said many times now, it’s fun to be petty. So let the hatred fire up again.
Author’s Note: By NO means should anyone at all go after them, take personal shots or otherwise be hateful towards him or the account – we were joking around and he accomplished his task of making me mad about it in a funny way. We’re roasting each other, and please keep it that way – it’s just jokes y’all. He’s even aware that I’m writing this.
The Edmonton Oilers
Type of Hatred: Moral
As mentioned above, despite losing to the Florida Panthers in seven games in last season’s Stanley Cup Finals, the Oilers re-signed Corey Perry to a new one-year deal. But that’s not the reason they’re here. The reason we should hate the Oilers this season is the man pictured above, new General Manager Stan Bowman.
Stan Bowman, Joel Quenneville and Al MacIsaac were all reinstated with the NHL earlier this year after the horrific scandal with Kyle Beach that they oversaw in Chicago that ended in Bowman’s resignation in 2021. If you somehow were unaware of what happened in that case, I suggest you catch up on it, but it’s safe to say it was an awful, horrific situation, yet somehow, the Edmonton Oilers thought it wise to reward Bowman by giving him the top position in their organization even though it is abundantly clear that he is not fit to be in charge of a mites hockey team, let alone a professional one. So, sorry Mattias Ekholm, but it’s our moral duty to see Edmonton falter into obscurity.
The Vancouver Canucks
Type of Hatred: Personal
It’s nice to get back to a type of hatred that doesn’t stem from crimes against humanity, and instead, pure pettiness after the Vancouver Canucks ousted the Predators in the first round of the playoffs last season in six games. Plus, they had the audacity to sign personal favorite Kiefer Sherwood to their team as well as Dakota Joshua injuring promising young defender Spencer Statsney in Game 3 that left Nashville with very little depth on their blue line. So sorry, Canucks, until you make your awesome skate logo your primary, we wish you nothing but the worst.
The Dallas Stars
Type of Hatred: Personal (for both myself and Kate)
I asked my fellow writers if there were any teams they thought I should add to this list, and our site manager Kate was suspiciously quick to offer up the Dallas Stars as one. According to her, their goal song makes her “want to set [her] ears on fire”, and she also just harbors a deep hatred for all Central Division teams with the exception of Utah because, well, why would you?
For me, this was an addition for two sillier reasons. First, I got to once again inject my personal grudge against Corey Perry into the narrative with the above tweet from world-famous Predators fan @HousecatsNSH for basically ruining Ryan Ellis’ career during the Winter Classic. The other reason is that, as a fan of the Dallas Cowboys (I know, I know, it’s my own punishment to bear), there should be only one professional team in Dallas with a star logo that ruins my day, and the Stars aren’t it.