Nashville Predators Grades: Season to Forget for Viktor Arvidsson

It was a disjointed season for Viktor Arvidsson as he struggled to return to noticeable form for the Nashville Predators after coming back.

Viktor Arvidsson is an easy fan-favorite for the Nashville Predators thanks to how he plays the game. He leaves everything on the ice and doesn’t let his small stature hold him back.

This past season presented a tough challenge for Arvidsson as he tried to battle back from injury, but he just never looked like the same player after he came back into the lineup.

Arvidsson went down with a controversial lower body injury after

Robert Bortuzzo

of the St.Louis Blues had a questionable cross-check on him. Take a look at it for yourself courtesy of Sportsnet:

How much was the injury to blame?

It was clearly a dirty play by Bortuzzo that cost Arvidsson a chance at playing a full season. Arvidsson has never played a full 82-game season, and this season he played in just 57 of the team’s 69 games played.

Perhaps the season will pick back up through all of this, but assuming it doesn’t, Arvidsson never really got back into normal form after returning.

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Arvidsson is a player that not only likes to use his speed to flip the ice, but also get down into the dirty areas and crash the net. I didn’t see that after the injury. Instead I saw reluctancy and not as much aggression.

Before the injury occurred Arvidsson had 15 points in 22 games. He was on a solid pace that was much closer to his career pace he set in his first two full seasons. The he returned in late December and quickly scored three goals in three-straight games.

His production fell off a cliff after that while the team was also coming close to the edge and going through an eventual coaching change.

With that being said, Arvidsson obviously didn’t live up to the expectations that most have for him. He was a shell of himself managing just 28 points in 57 games.

Arvidsson’s ice time decreased in a pretty big way going down to 16:12 per game, which was almost three minutes less than the season before. A midseason coaching change and new players thrown into the mix have something to do with that as well.

A lost season

The Predators found themselves on that playoff bubble for most of the season because the top six couldn’t be figured out. There were other players in the lineup that kept the ship from sinking, but the normal top stars of the team failed to deliver.

Arvidsson shares some of that blame, even with the controversial injury from Bortuzzo and a midseason coaching change that disrupted team chemistry.

However, this season is one that I have a hard time believing is a sign of things to come. Instead it’s an aberration and he’ll bounce back to regular form and maybe even flourish as there’s more stability created under Head Coach John Hynes.

As for his grade, it was certainly one to forget. We’re talking about a player that burst onto the scene and scored 31 goals in his first full season in the NHL. He nearly matched that total the following season, and his future still looks bright.

We have to remember that Arvidsson came into the mix in rapid fashion and now he has to stay healthy. Being so undersized and having the reputation that he has, that will be the true test.

You also have to take into account that Arvidsson’s game might be starting to get figured out by the opposing teams. So he’ll have to start developing his game more and lean on coaches to put him in the right place to be most successful.

Arvidsson gets a very average grade for this past season due to not looking being able to recover after being injured by Bortuzzo. I’m not going to make excuses for him.