The Week That Was: Chapter 15

January hasn’t been a kind month to the Nashville Predators as far as the number of home games are concerned.

Between the season’s longest road trip and the All-Star break, just one multi-game homestand occurred, and this week was it with a trio of games featuring a pair of Eastern Conference foes—including the defending Stanley Cup champions—and the top team in the Central Division.

The end result? A decisive whipping of said defending champion, and not much else.

Ryan Johansen got himself suspended for a couple of games and boy, did it show up Saturday.

After Saturday, the Predators have as many regulation losses (18) as they did all of last season. And yet, they’re still only four points out of first place in the Central Division.

Let’s run through them one more time:

The Fast Money Round

Tuesday: Predators 7, Washington Capitals 2

On all cylinders, they were. Whip them, they did.

Thursday: Winnipeg Jets 5, Predators 1

On no cylinders, they were. Got whipped, they did.

Saturday: Florida Panthers 4, Predators 2

There were maybe about 14 good minutes out of the Predators without Ryan Johansen. Not a good loss to end the homestand, and they really need to quit making it a habit of playing down to the backmarkers of the league.

Player of the Week

Can’t draw much out of the last two games this week, so Viktor Arvidsson takes the honors.

Favorite Thing of the Week

Also out of Tuesday’s beatdown, Rocco’s modern life is scoring goals like this:

Discussion of the Week

Two questions this week:

A. Who is the most irreplaceable skater (not goaltender) for the Predators? I put Viktor Arvidsson up there, but after seeing things up close and personal on Saturday, Ryan Johansen might just be that guy.

B. I don’t think it’s a matter of if a trade will happen, it’s now when it will happen. With that said, what are you willing to give up and for whom? (I know we’ve asked this before, but it bears repeating.)

Also: I think Nashville needs a skills competition event like other teams are having.

This week’s grade

This was looking like a great week after Tuesday. But one dismantling cancels out the other, and losing to Florida is just not what this team should be doing right now. Johansen’s suspension didn’t help, but your other guys have to step up and provide a better effort despite the missing pieces. This week’s grade: C-

Player of the Week for Week 15?