It was, in the end, another familiar if not exactly comfortable experience: a back-and-forth nailbiter of a playoff elimination game, with the Predators coming up just short of extending their season.
In this case, the dagger came with 99 seconds remaining in regulation on a Pius Suter goal that was facilitated by some admittedly beautiful passing around the back of the Preds’ net. Although they were thrown a lifeline with 33.9 seconds left in the form of a Canucks penalty (not the first crosscheck to the back that a Vancouver player had committed on-ice), the clock struck midnight all the same.
It’s hard not to wax romantic at the end of a season, no matter how it ends. I’m a Cubs fan — I know what it’s like to lose (and lose, and lose, and lose, and lose–) but still keep coming back. Not always because we feel like “Wait ‘til next year” will actually hit next year, though there’s always the hope that maybe this time the stars will align. So often we come back because it’s about more than just winning.
It’s why catfish (or other sea critters of your choice, depending on your locale) get flung on the ice, and cars get crunched, and Bridgestone is always a loud experience despite being a “non-traditional hockey market” — a snobbish way to say “Sunbelt,” among other things.
That’s not to say that the frustrating things don’t matter, or that being disappointed — among other feelings — is somehow a lesser emotion or one that’s not valid.
It is frustrating that Nashville, despite looking like the better team for solid stretches of this series, and sometimes even a vastly superior one, could not convert on so many of its chances. It’s frustrating that despite taking two of three on Vancouver’s home ice, the Predators could not win one on their own — again. It’s frustrating when the Preds had eight minutes of power play to Vancouver’s two, which was a pattern for the series; Nashville had more power play minutes in four of the six games this series and a total advantage of 45 minutes worth of power plays to the Canucks’ 29.
It’s disappointing that for a team that feels like it really has turned a corner on so many things — on its culture and team construction, with its coaching, and with dazzling hockey for a six-week rocket booster ride into the playoffs — they still just keep running into walls in the playoffs, as Kate pointed out last week.
And that’s to say nothing of the more specific heartbreakers, which Kate covers as well in that same piece. This one stung especially, coming in a game that, while not as free-flowing as some (including the national broadcast teams both in the stadium and at intermission) might have liked, was riding the playoff overtime hockey “cocaine while riding a motorcycle out of a helicopter” energy from start to finish.
It’s easy to think in the manner of lost chances or blown opportunities. There will be plenty of time to figure out who could have played better, what strategy would have been superior, or lament who was injured in ways that nobody knew about (watch this space for news about those inevitable announcements) and probably should not have been playing a contact sport with said injuries. There’s a whole season to look back on after all, and not all of it was as wonderful as the streak.
However you feel about the end of this season is valid. For me, this team is probably my favorite out of all the ones from the eight or so years I’ve been watching the Predators. They looked more than ever like a team that was not just good, but believed they could be good. There were hiccups — major ones at times, and sometimes the worst times — but there are few substitutes for feeling like you can go into a fight and swing with the best of them.
Nashville did just that. I highly doubt anyone in Vancouver’s feeling great about how this series went, and that’s before they look northeast at the freight train in Oilers regalia that’s bearing down on them. And so much of what looked good for Nashville, especially in the last three months, seems to be positives that can carry over into next year.
Odds and Ends
- Ah, broadcasters. TNT on the national one again, and it was, again, lackluster. I know it’s not unique in that, but with some of the promise of better work (ESPN was not flawless, but definitely was superior) during the game, it definitely stood out.
- I really do love the catfish toss. As I noted to Kate during the game, that the staff were ready for it, snagged it barehand and zoomed off the ice only made it more enjoyable.
- As noted above, uh, I would be quite nervous if I were a Canuck partisan going into Round 2. Granted, I’d say the same about whoever escapes the Stars-Golden Knights series too. It really does look like it’ll be flamethrowers at five paces for the Western Conference Finals.
A Brief Aside on Sunbelt Hockey
This is a nitpicky thing on my end, but the commenters on the TNT broadcast, when describing how loud and hearty the cheers were in the arena this game, said that the fans had “manufactured a great atmosphere” despite there not being a lot of action. I suspect the intent was meant to be complimentary, and a more charitable part of me wants to take it that way.
But it’s not that difficult to say “the fans here are great, they always show up and show out for the team” — and that is what they say about those “traditional” hockey markets. I should know: I grew up cheering for an Original Six team, and that’s how the fans were always described, including during some very lean years (and ones that were famous for not selling out at home).
Painting every Sunbelt team with the experiences of poor management resulting in lackluster local support — be that in Arizona or Atlanta — is a pretty lazy way to think, and treating Nashville as the “good” example of them isn’t any better. Anywhere can be a great hockey town, especially when the team engages the community instead of looking down at them.
Three Stars
- First Star goes to (who else but) Juuse Saros. This is a Goalie Positive Household — and really, how could we not be with Pekka Rinne as the stalwart in goal for so long — and Saros’s work this series was tireless in keeping the Predators in the hunt. The fact that the Canucks’ hilarious-were-it-not-exhausting deficiency of shots on goal is dragging down his save % is yet another reason I am both glaring (in mostly good humor) towards them and also harboring doubts about what happens when they get Edmonton.
- Second Star goes to the Predators’ collective defense. Once again, they blocked a lot of shots that would have otherwise been headed for Saros. The count for the series-total of those is one that makes me want to grab an ice pack in sympathy.
- Third Star belongs once again to Nashville, the community, showing up in the stadium. It would have been very easy to go home with the end of the regular season, especially with a series against a division winner and with a grueling schedule for travel making it not likely to see a lot of high-scoring hockey. But unlike their totem sea critter, the Preds were not left to flop onto the ice by their lonesome. The community showed out, like they have for years now, and cheered them all the way off the ice.
Nobody knows what the future holds; what looks like an opening door can easily be a window slamming shut and opportunity will blossom when and where you least expect it. That’s why being able to enjoy what we have in the moment is so important, because it’s always fleeting — whether this is the last bit of a magical run or something that’s looked back on with fondness, of a time where we couldn’t even imagine the heights ahead.
Thank you all for being part of this moment — it genuinely makes everything about watching Predators hockey (and now writing about it) so much more fun. Whatever comes next, it’s been a joy to be part of it with you.