Nashville Predators: March Awards

March Madness has come & gone. The Nashville Predators are where they have been most of the season: on top of the Central & unsure of their fate. We look back at the madness.

Three games are left in the 2018-19 regular season and pretty much everything is up for grabs. After an up & down 7-6 month, the Nashville Predators sit tied atop the Central Division with the Winnipeg Jets. The Jets own the tiebreaker while the St. Louis Blues sit two points behind. Nashville can be the one, two or three seed after the first week of April shakes out.

This season has definitely been tough to figure out. The Predators looked like world-beaters for about a month. They’ve shown glimpses of that from time to time. They’ve also looked like one of the worst teams in the league. March featured games from both ends of the spectrum. Just when you start to get excited about the Predators’ potential, they lay an egg.

Let’s take a look at some of the best & worst of March.

More from Editorials

• Captain Candidates if Nashville Predators Didn’t Have Roman Josi
• How the Nashville Predators Have Trended over Past Five Years
• Three Reasons Nashville Predators can Shock the World in 2023-24
• Three Different Outcomes for Juuse Saros’ Future with Nashville Predators
• Top-5 Nashville Predators Home Games to Attend for Upcoming Season

Best Fox Sports Tennessee gimmick: Reuniting Pete Weber & Terry Crisp for 90s Night

I mean no disrespect to Willy Daunic or Chris Mason. I enjoy the Nashville Predators’ television coverage immensely. Daunic & Mason have shown good chemistry as an announce team. Lyndsay Rowley & Kara Hammer’s contributions to the coverage are also much appreciated.

However, Nashville fans grew up on Pete Weber & Terry Crisp. Weber & Crisp served as the main Predators television announce team for the first fifteen seasons of the franchise. Many Nashville fans learned the game of hockey through their commentary. While their replacements have proven competent, we still miss Weber & Crisp.

It was 90s Night at Bridgestone Arena for the Predators/Maple Leafs game on March 19, and Fox Sports Tennessee celebrated the occasion by having Weber & Crisp return to their old gig for the evening. It brought back fond memories hearing them call the game together like it was the old days. Here’s hoping this becomes an annual event, a little something to change the mood once a year.

Predator We Need More From: Kyle Turris

Let’s be honest: there are certain Nashville Predators we don’t expect too much from. Youngsters like Rem Pitlick, Matt Donovan & Dante Fabbro are just getting their feet wet on the top level. We know what to expect from the likes of Freddy Gaudreau & Rocco Grimaldi…not much in the way of points, but a ton of energy & solid play on the lower lines. Guys like Matt Irwin & Yannick Weber eat up minutes & give the top defensemen a breather.

There are some Predators that need to step it up in April if Nashville is going to be a postseason hotspot. Heading into this season, Kyle Turris was seen as the second center that would anchor a strong line featuring Kevin Fiala, Craig Smith and himself. While Smith still found his way to twenty goals, Turris was a tremendous disappointment whenever he was able to get on the ice. A foot injury kept him out of action for seventeen games, and Turris has never really gotten on track since coming back.

Maybe he’s still banged up. Unfortunately, it’s resulted in Turris’ worst season since he was on his rookie contract with the Phoenix Coyotes. Peter Laviolette even benched him a couple of games in March to try & get Turris out of his funk. It didn’t work, as he’s been outside the scoring column since his return on March 19. One of Nashville’s most important players has become a non-factor.

If the Predators are going to make a run, Turris needs to be a part of it.

Best Predators Performance: March 16, 4-2 win at San Jose

The Nashville Predators’ complete 60-minute performances have been few & far between this season, so any time one happens is worth noting. They rolled into San Jose to take on a Sharks team looking to clinch a playoff spot. It’s not like the Sharks weren’t going to win another game and get in, but it’s always nice to make another team work an extra game or two for it.

Viktor Arvidsson scored two goals on the evening, with Colton Sissons scoring the first & Filip Forsberg getting the goal that would prove the difference. Juuse Saros had a good night & only had to face twenty-six shots. The Predators were clicking on all cylinders and able to beat a Sharks team that didn’t exactly have a down night.

Worst Predators Performance: March 23, 5-0 loss in Winnipeg

Going in, this was touted as “the biggest game of the regular season”. We hear this multiple times a season, but a late-season meeting between the top two teams in the Central certainly carries a great deal of weight. The Predators were coming off of three straight wins followed by a shootout loss to Pittsburgh, so it looked like they were starting to find their way.

Of course, they laid an egg in this game. If you’ve followed this team this season, you were probably expecting it. The first period got off to a good enough start with neither team managing to score, but the Jets broke things open in the second with three goals while Nashville looked like they didn’t know where they were. Pekka Rinne was basically helpless, as his defensemen did what they’ve done too many times this season: failed to play defense.

It wasn’t a showing that inspired much confidence for the Predators’ postseason hopes.

Most Valuable Predator: Viktor Arvidsson

There was a time where I wondered if Arvidsson would be able to keep his stellar play going for the long haul. His 2016-17 season seemed so random compared to his rookie season and what’s typically expected from a fourth-round draft pick his size. 2017-18 was pretty much a carbon copy of 2016-17, and this season has to be considered even more impressive considering he’s missed twenty-four games due to injury.

Arvidsson scored seven goals in March, giving him a career-high of thirty-three. His assist numbers are way down, which is to be expected as he’s almost always on the same line with Ryan Johansen. (His four in March was third-most on the team, so that part of his game is coming back into form.) It took Arvidsson 274 games to make it to the 100 goal mark for his career, making him the fastest player that debuted with the Predators to make it to 100 goals. It took his linemate Filip Forsberg 281 games.

He’s now tied with Forsberg & Jason Arnott‘s Nashville Predators record for goals in a season. Had he been more healthy, he might have broken the record in February.