Predators are Surging at Perfect Time After Sweep of St.Louis

It’s better late than never, and the Nashville Predators are surging at just the right time. And with plenty of games left to go.

Many of us were way down on the Nashville Predators just two weeks ago. They had just laid a dud to the Vegas Golden Knights at home, and it looked like this team was never going to get over the hump.

Fast forward to right now, and the Predators are riding high and on the cusp of being back into a playoff spot, which they haven’t been in since November.

The Predators just swept the season series from the St.Louis Blues, the defending Stanley Cup champs. And they did it in physically and mentally bruising types of games.

Meanwhile, the current wildcard holders are trending in negative directions. Arizona is 3-4-3 in their last ten, while Calgary is 4-5-1. Nashville is 7-3 in their last ten.

Can we trust them again?

I think it’s important to understand the ebbs and flows of an NHL regular season. Almost every team goes through their share of peaks and valley. The Predators were in a deep valley for a long time, but never were completely buried.

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Now the Predators have their first three-game winning streak since they won four in a row in late October. It’s still a modest winning streak, and there’s still plenty of games left for it to go wrong again.

But this does feel different. The Predators are playing as a whole unit for the first time in a while. They’re not relying on exploding for four or five goals to overshadow shaky defensive play.

The Predators are starting to win games by holding teams to three goals or less more consistently now. Take out the Vancouver debacle and the Predators have held every team they’ve faced this month to three goals or less.

I like the Predators’ chances of winning a lot of games when they can hold their opponent to three goals or less.

It’s a combination of getting more comfortable under John Hynes as head coach, and the players playing with a competitive fire that wasn’t being seen before the All-Star break.

Then you see players who were playing horrible under Peter Laviolette suddenly making a huge impact now.

Mikael Granlund jumps to mind immediately, but really it’s more about all four lines finally starting to find some consistency and identities.

For that reason, yes I’m starting to trust this team more so than I have in months.

Sweeping the Blues

The Blues are in a major funk of their own right now, and the Predators just amplified that over the weekend. This is a huge confidence booster for the Predators as they’re suddenly in a very favorable spot in the wildcard race.

We don’t just have to primarily focus on the wildcard, either. The Predators are just seven points back of a top-three spot in the division as well, although that will be tough to reach.

The Predators got back-to-back solid goaltending performances from Juuse Saros and Pekka Rinne over the weekend.

Saros let some goals get past him in the Saturday meeting, but he stepped up and made the key saves when needed to hold the Blues off in the final frame.

Then Rinne brought us a vintage performance to carry Nashville in a gutsy defensive brawl, and Kyle Turris was able to score the game-winner.

I’ve been waiting all season for the goaltending to start finding better luck, and for the team to play better in front of them. It looks like Saros is the primary starter from here on out, but how refreshing it was to see Rinne give us the gem on Sunday.

Crowded schedule

The Predators have six games in the last 13 days of February, and then will play four games in seven days to open up March. Lots of chances remain to move up even further, or fade backward and break our hearts again.

There’s also a lot of division matchups remaining. They play Colorado three more times, Minnesota two more times, Chicago two more times and Dallas two more times.

They’re starting to click together as a full unit at the perfect time as all of these crucial division games start coming up. Winning these games will really push them up the standings quickly.

Bringing Hynes on when they did shortly after the Winter Classic was about as late as they could’ve waited to make the change. Waiting any later and the Predators would’ve kept fading and be too far out of it now.

I’ll admit to this degree how wrong I was about the midseason coaching change.

I didn’t like it at the time, but I’m happy to admit I was wrong as the Predators have obviously made some systematic changes that are resulting in better hockey all the way around.

Now obviously not all the fears and doubt are suddenly washed away after a three-game winning streak. Issues with specials teams and putting together full 60-minute games remain problems to address.

Buckle in tight, because this season has plenty more ups and downs left to give us, and I’m feeling as confident as I’ve been since beating the Capitals in October about this team’s chances of at least making the playoffs.