We find ourselves only a few weeks into the brand new NHL season, yet the Nashville Predators have already begun to set some truly astounding records. Predators beat writer Adam Vignan revealed that the Preds are only the second team in NHL history to “begin the season with three consecutive wins in which they scored no more than three goals and allowed no more than one.” Further, Nashville Predators media coordinator Brooks Bratten shared that Roman Josi is the first, and only Predator to score a game-winning, shorthanded, empty net goal (GWSHENG*). These sorts of records are truly the ones on which great franchise Wikipedia articles are built.
I like overly specific sports records. No, I adore them. I want to gently wrap each one in hand oiled leather, seal them in glass cases, and preserve them in a massive library of beautiful things that should not exist but do.
In this spirit of excitement, irreverence, and disregard for actual achievement, I’d like to share several other records the Nashville Predators have achieved in the first week of the 2015-2016 NHL season.
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The game against the New Jersey Devils was the first time in franchise history the Predators managed to score two, non-consecutive empty net goals following a Monday night team dinner in which no fewer than three players ordered pasta as an entree and opted for a side Caesar rather than house salad.
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Roman Josi simultaneously secured the record for most NHL goals scored in a single game by a Swiss-national while thinking about Roger Federer. Josi has yet to reveal why he was thinking about the international tennis superstar through the course of Tuesday’s game against the Devils.
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On Saturday night, Carter Hutton secured Predators record for fastest sentence. Carter has been pursuing the record for over two years. The previous record was held by Dan Ellis’ twitter account.
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The Predators were at one point on pace to complete an 82-0-0-0 season for the first time in franchise history. Only the Phoenix Coyotes, (current) Winnipeg Jets, and St Louis Blues have yet achieve an undefeated season.
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On opening night against the Carolina Hurricanes, the Predators were there first team in the modern NHL to not set or break a record of any sort. Achieving this record created a time loop that is directly credited for Eric Nystrom’s goal Tuesday against the Devils
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Not Predators specific, but interesting: Over two dozen hockey advanced stats bloggers refreshed their pages explaining PDO in preparation of the first full week of analysis by hockey pundits. It will, as always, be a fruitless exercise. The previous record was twenty-one advanced stat bloggers updating pages at the start of the 2014-2015 season.
The rest of the season will be a challenging one for the Predators as expectations have clearly been set very high. Still, as fans and members of the media it is our responsibility to dig up every caveat and exception we can in order to help teams keep breaking new ground. In order to track this, I encourage everyone to go ahead and set parameters for a particular record you are looking forward to and tracking it through the course of the season. How else will we know when Seth Jones finally supplants Sergei Kostitsyn as having the highest total combined assists and points from Ms. Pac Man games played during Nashville Predators sponsored events?
*Pronounced as ‘go-ua-shwen’, which oddly enough is an obscure ancient Cantonese word that roughly translates to ‘skycrane’.