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Game #50 – Hawks vs. Predators Q&A: J.R. Lind, Post His Own Rumble Party

By Sam Fels 1792 0

You’ll have to excuse JR a bit. Apparently down in Nash-Vegas, he hosts an enormous Royal Rumble party every year. When we sent this to him, he wasn’t sure who he was and definitely didn’t know how his arms worked. We thank him for playing hurt. 

 

Game #50 Preview

Preview

Spotlight

Q&A

Douchebag Du Jour

I Make A Lot Of Graphs

Lineups & How Teams Were Built

Everything Else

Game #24 – Hawks vs. Predators: Q&A With Hayley Alexandra

By Sam Fels 1853 0

Hayley is a contributor to OnTheForecheck.com. You can follow her on Twitter @ItsHalesYeah.

6-1 since the Kyle Turris acquisition. Clearly it’s all systems go for the Predators. What’s been the biggest difference he has provided?
The Preds offense has lacked center depth for so long, finally acquiring a 2C out of a guy Ottawa was running as a 1C is huge for this team. He was a renewed confidence boost they needed badly before the trade. Any time a new guy comes in and shakes things up I think it helps the guys who have struggled, work out whatever issues they’ve been having, and get back to playing their game. Turris has definitely taken some pressure off of Ryan Johansen, who was slow to start this year. Knowing that he has some depth behind him now should keep this team rolling deep into the post season again.
If there’s any concern, Juuse Saros has struggled in limited appearances. Is there a fear that Pekka Rinne might have to play too many games if Saros can’t turn it around?
Saros is young and talented, but spending too much time on the bench isn’t good for anyone. He could benefit from spending a few short trips to the AHL to get some playing time in. As for Rinne, he’s been a workhorse for this team for the past few seasons. It’s a role he’s comfortable with and thrives on. My faith in Rinne has not faltered, despite all the backlash he’s gotten the past few seasons. His play during last year’s playoff run and this season has shown he has one goal and that’s to win the cup before he retires. For the first time in a few seasons, Rinne is the least of Nashville’s concerns. 
Truly scary that Ryan Ellis has yet to suit up this season. When he returns do you see Peter Laviolette keeping the top two pairs as is and having Ellis on the third?
Being without Ellis has hindered the defense significantly this season. While Roman Josi, P.K. Subban, and Mattias Ekholm can hold their own, it’s left an odd rotation to the top pairs. Matt Irwin is a solid anchor for the third line but isn’t really a top pairing kind of defensemen. Guys like Yannick Weber and Alexei Emelin have not been great this season either, keeping either one of them on the top lines probably wouldn’t work out for long. As long as Ellis is healthy he easily slides back into the top two pairings as he should. I can’t see any reason why Laviolette would do anything differently. 
A strange aspect to the Preds so far is that while they’ve been consistently one of the better analytic/sabermetric teams over the years, this year they’re not creating as many “good” chances as years past. Obviously this hasn’t been a problem in actually scoring goals, especially of late, but is this something you see?
The start of this season was not the best showing for the Preds. While they’re not creating as many good chances, they’ve also missed a lot of chances as well. I think the addition of Turris and guys like Scott Hartnell and Ryan Ellis getting healthy will help the Preds create better chances and finish them. 
Now that we’re more than a quarter into this season, does it feel even more like Cup Or Bust for the Predators than it did before the season?
This is such a young team, I think they’ll be Cup contenders for a while. That being said the city of Nashville is ready for a Stanley Cup winning team, and if any Preds team can get it done, it’s this one. 
Everything Else

Your Friends And Neighbors – ’17-’18 NHL Team Previews: Sky Of Blue, Sea Of Green, In Our Yellow Submarine AH HA!

By 1586

Everyone’s darling. It’s always so much fun when the Canadian media “discovers” that hockey can be enjoyed somewhere else other than some main artery in Toronto or that one strip of bars in Calgary where everyone wears a jersey because they don’t actually own anything else. Of course, this also happened in 2012 when the Canucks played the Predators in the 2nd round and they were shocked to discover the Nashville fans had better and more fun traditions than, “two college kids ripping off a game from It’s Always Sunny,” and “waving a towel.”

Whatever, the Nashville Predators made the most noise they ever have in the playoffs last year, and outplayed the Penguins for a good stretch of the Final. But in the same vein as, “didn’t, lawyer fucked me,” they went the, “if only Pekka Rinne was actually as good as we keep telling people he is” route for defeat excuse. Here’s the thing though: Pekka Rinne is still here. And he’s a year older.

Nashville Predators

’16-’17 Record: 41-29-12  94 points (4th in Central, lost Final to PIT)

Team Stats 5v5: 51.3 CF% (5th)  51.3 SF% (7th)  50.7 SCF% (14th)  7.8 SH% (13th)  .926 SV% (9th)

Special Teams: 18.9 PP% (16th)  80.9 PK% (15th)

Everything Else

Ein Minuten, Bitte. Ich Habe Einen Kleinen Problemo Avec Diese Predators

By 1665

Here was a headline that caught me somewhere uncomfortable the other day:

“Ryan Johansen’s Blockbuster Deal Could Set Up Predators Dynasty”

Ambitious stuff for a team that’s been past the second round exactly once, don’t you think? Look, I get it. Best top four on the blue line in the league, arguably. A raft of fast, young forwards not bereft of skill. A pretty good coach, though has a track record of flaming out quickly in places. A rabid fanbase and unique (whether you think it’s good or bad) atmosphere that tends to cloud the judgement of neutral observers (don’t tell me that doesn’t happen). A division where everyone appears to be standing still at best, if not falling backwards. Really, who else in the Central has an upward trajectory at the moment? So it’s easy to fall in love with Nashville.

But let’s take a look, shall we?

Everything Else

Watch The Weather Change

By 1409

If you’re a fan of watching storylines change on a nightly basis and watching teams try and counter one another, this is a series for you. And yet it feels like when each of these teams plays its best, or the best it has in this series, they lose.

The Penguins probably played their best game of the Final last night. They figured out something that the Hawks only figured out far too late, the Blues simply aren’t capable of, and the Ducks are too stupid. They didn’t have any forwards fleeing the zone, coming deeper in the defensive zone on breakouts to try and relieve the pressure, and break up the ice as a five-man unit. It’s really the only way to deal with the Preds’ pressure. You have to be an outlet for the defense under their ridiculous forecheck and then you need options coming through the neutral zone with the Nashville d-men standing up at their line and the forwards closing in from behind.

The Penguins did it, caused the Preds more problems than they’d seen, and got the equalizer from Crosby after forcing the Preds into a shoddy line-change after sustained pressure.

But there’s a problem with that…

Everything Else

Fascinating And Meaningless, All At The Same Time

By 1330

Once you get past the Predators’, or more to the point their fans’, constant bed-wetting over the refs (and really a lot of people’s), or the heavier amounts of bullshit we saw last night when the game got out of reach, there is something of a fascinating clash of styles going on here. And also an excellent example of how in hockey there really is only so much you can control, and it’s rarely enough to ensure things swing your way.

I guess you could call it that… except it’s probably not the Penguins plan to get throttled for huge swaths of the game and then pray that Matt Murray can bail them out of it. If it is… well bully for them.

Everything Else

Well That’s One Way To Do It

By 1525

When I said I couldn’t quite get a handle on this series, I wasn’t saying I expected to see the weirdest Final game of my lifetime (and feel free to correct me on this one). We may never see a team that has won three rounds to get here go 37 minutes(!) without a shot again. And we’re even less likely to see any team come close to that and still win. That was an all-timer. But I suppose in a building where less than a week ago an entire crowd was going apeshit over a puck that went on top of the net and not in it, anything is possible.

I actually had some flashbacks to the 2010 series against the Predators watching last night, and even some of the one in ’15. You’ll recall seven years ago in the first three games the Preds simply sat on the boards at the points in the Hawks’ zone, essentially trapping there instead of in the neutral zone. They dared the Hawks to go up the middle or try and find the time for flips out to center, and it took Brian Campbell’s return and a wake-up from Quenneville (and a small, boneheaded play from Martin Erat that I certainly don’t think about every single day) for the Hawks to crack it.

It was some of the same stuff last night.

Everything Else

So We Sailed Up To The Sun

By 1348

Since the matchup was set, I’ve had a hard time getting a hold on this series. Which probably means we’re in for a good one, which the NHL could use. It’s been a while since there was a classic Final. Hawks-Bruins is probably the last one, and even that lost some of its luster when all of Patrice Bergeron’s organs fell into his feet. Rangers-Kings was awful, Hawks-Lightning was tightly contested but the games theselves weren’t really much for the neutral (the last three games were all 2-1 or 2-0). I honestly don’t remember any of the Sharks-Penguins games from last year except for maybe Donskoi’s OT winner. Hopefully, we get a little better here.

It’s also hard to fully judge these two teams as banged up as they are. While the Penguins are basically only a Letang short of a full lineup, there are so many guys who look like they are carrying something or have missed time that you don’t know exactly what you’re getting. The Preds don’t have Johansen and Fiala, which is a real problem.

Everything Else

Boots & Boys: Predators 1 – Hawks 0 (Preds lead series 1-0)

By 1662

Box Score

Natural Stat Trick

In the aftermath of this one, and even really during it, I saw a lot of citing of how much time the Hawks had off, combined with not even really trying in the last week, and how bad they are when they get a lot of rest. I don’t know that this is really a viable excuse. After all, the Preds had to keep trying throughout the season and they capped it off by losing to the fucking Jets. But we’ve been down this road with the Hawks before, including against this very team seven years ago. The Hawks are rarely totally sharp in a Game 1 in the first round, and couldn’t save this one tonight even though it was sitting there like a pig on a spit. The Preds almost certainly won’t be so lucky next time.

But we did learn some things tonight.

Everything Else

We R Who We R – Nashville Predators Playoff Preview: Goalies And Defense

By 1487

As is tradition here, we will break up our preview over two days. I’ll take the back end today, because most tend to think I’m a horse’s ass, and then Matt will be around tomorrow to take you through the forward group. So let’s dive right in before they drain the pool, shall we?

Goalies

Pekka Rinne: 31-19-9, 2.42 GAA, .918 SV%, .929 EV SV%, .862 SH SV%

Ah yes, this old thing. You remember this. The Hawks have only faced one other goalie three times in the playoffs, and that would be Roberto Luongo. He was able to turn the tables on the Hawks at the third time of asking, but the 2011 team is not this team and the Predators are not the ’11 Canucks. When we first did this dance in 2010 it was a little scary facing Rinne, but then the Hawks punted him to a .911 over six games and won. In 2015 Rinne’s limitations were already well known to everyone, and while Crawford and then Darling took their turns swallowing mouthwash, Rinne couldn’t take advantage and put up a .909 over six games and was once again sent home. There’s no reason to think this will go any differently.