Nashville Predators Calle Jarnkrok 2018-19 Report Card
The Nashville Predators saw Calle Jarnkrok‘s offensive production take a dip in the 2018-19 season, but was it all bad for him?
I would honestly say so. Despite the nine point drop off from the 2017-18 season, Jarnkrok found an increased role as a defensive minded forward on the Nashville Predators fourth line, but that may be the only positive thing to come out of Calle Jarnkrok’s fifth full NHL season.
There is an elephant in the room that we just cannot ignore: he can’t score goals. He hasn’t scored one since February 5th, ending the season with just ten goals. Which means scored 30% of his goals this season when he scored a hat trick against the lowly Los Angeles Kings.
This season has been a bit of a dud for the 27 year old Calle Jarnkrok, as he is just coming off of a season where he scored 16 goals and 35 points while only playing 68 games, a career season for him. He followed that up by posting just 26 points in 79 games.
He went cold for the last two months of the season and couldn’t recover, collecting just four assists in that time span, which made him basically invisible for the latter half of the season.
He was alright defensively and he won over 50% of his faceoffs, but there wasn’t really anything else there.
He did pick up two assists in the Nashville Predators playoff series, but didn’t do anything special, he was just kinda there, and that pretty much sums up his 2018-19 season.
Jarnkrok was nothing more than average this season, especially seeing drop offs from his previous four seasons in the NHL, which is why he will be earning a “C” grade for the 2018-19 season.
Next season needs to be a bounce back year for Jarnkrok, as he is now halfway through a six year, $12 million dollar contract he signed with the Nashville Predators prior to the 2016-17 season. Although he is on a relatively cheap contract, if he doesn’t bounce back, he could see himself be replaced in a crowded Predators forward core.