Nashville Predators: The Evolution of the Defense This Season

It’s been a struggling, yet unpredictable season for the Nashville Predators defensively, but have they finally found the missing pieces?

Over the course of the season, the Nashville Predators’ defense has had some shaky defense that hasn’t covered the defensive zone like they should.

With injuries and a trade, let’s talk about how it all has shifted and what the outcome is looking like.

Back to November

At the beginning of the season, we noticed a team that was having incredible comebacks for wins against what would go on to be top contending opponents.

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Offense could find a second wind to make comebacks with attacking, and defense would “hold the fort”, in terms of protecting their zone and finding ways to block the crease.

November came, however,  and we first witnessed the start of a downward spiral that came from a 9-4 loss against Colorado on November 7th. That game will haunt most of us in our nightmares for a while.

Over the next few weeks the Predators went on a six-game losing streak that finally broke free with back-to-back wins against St.Louis. This is when things became unpredictable.

Things have been quite shaken since then, and you can never truly trust an easy win for the Predators now. With players such as Ryan Johansen and Viktor Arvidsson, who have been unreliable top players, it’s easy to understand why the team couldn’t get the goals they wanted.

What was really worrying was the defense looking so bad, and giving up waves of goals in quick fashion. Most notably on the penalty kill.

In hockey, just as any sport really, there has to be a good balance of defense and offense, and for this team the chemistry was just not there. Defense would play up to help offense more, and leave a wide open sheet of ice behind them for opposing teams to break away.

Perry vs. Ellis

If you watched the Winter Classic back on New Year’s Day, then you witnessed a controversial play with Dallas’ Corey Perry and Ryan Ellis. This was a hard pill to swallow as a struggling defense had just lost a top defenseman, leaving a further hole for the defense.

Ellis (thankfully), is back and healthy now, but over the course of the weeks to come from January on out, there was a further deficiency to the team on the defensive end.

Defense had to rely on the young Dante Fabbro to step up, and really needed a strong push from Mattias Ekholm to dig deep and stop traffic.

Still, the only reliance for this struggling defense was Captain Roman Josi, who always seemed to save the day defensively and put up goals and assists as well.

He’s got a solid chance at his first Norris Trophy if he maintains his point pace, which has him at 65 points in 69 games. But that race shouldn’t be just about basic points, and more about how you impact the entire team and game flow.

Overall, the defense was unreliable, but there seems to have been hope recently instilled, and I have to shed some light on the situation. I’m still cautious, for I have been let down this season far too many times, but maybe we have something here.

Holzer and Tinordi

A few weeks ago as the NHL Trade Deadline came, it seemed like a dud honestly. There were so many rumors and speculations that players would be sold or bought, and no one quite knew what GM David Poile’s final decision would be.

Then there was trade that no one seemed to understand:

Sure, Irwin was just not getting the job done with Nashville anymore, but was this a bad decision? There were so many questions left to answer from fans, and it was almost like lighting a firework and watching a dud. It was pretty frustrating.

I almost dreaded the game Holzer came into play, and I just knew the team would be getting to go golfing and see distant family sooner than everyone wanted. Something has happened here though, and it appears to be beautiful.

Game one of a two-game set with Dallas, bottom pairings were Holzer and Tinordi. Everyone was curious to see how this was gonna play out, and it actually worked!

Nashville played with a new sense of aggressiveness to their defense, and these two worked together to help Juuse Saros pull two shutouts over a tough team like Dallas, who has some blue collar, hard working lines.

Tinordi even went on to make Corey Perry regret the Ellis incident at the Winter Classic by a good hit into the Predators’ bench, and even a fight. Now I am thinking this is great!

It hasn’t stopped after Dallas. Tuesday night was a 4-2 win over Montreal, which has given the team and the fans a boost of confidence as the Predators push for the playoffs.

Now I know these wins weren’t all due to Holzer and Tinordi obviously, but it sure has helped to see a hard level of physicality and discipline to the defense. I’m starting to become sold on Holzer, even after my doubts.

It appears that Holzer and Tinordi compliment each other, and I would hate to be a bottom line winger getting hit by these two. Maybe it’s the physicality that we have heard so much about this season. Maybe it’s just good defense and discipline, or maybe it’s all of these things.

One things for sure as we have now for three games witnessed a completely different defensive system, and Hynes’ coaching has really come through it seems.

Overall I am pleased with what I have seen so far with these two. The evolution of the Predators defense from being a complete liability to maybe finally turning a corner is something interesting to watch as the season draws to a close.