Nashville Predators Superlatives: Biggest Liability in the Penalty Box

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Colin Blouin’s pick (@colinblouin)

Two of the top five players who spent time in the penalty box last season are now gone from the team. Austin Watson led the team by a large margin (20 minutes) with 65 total penalty minutes, and is now Ottawa’s problem.

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Dan Hamhuis is enjoying retirement. Who will step up to claim the mantle and leave fans (and maybe sometimes teammates and coaches) asking “WHY DID HE DO THAT”?

The other three players in the top-five are Ryan Johansen, Roman Josi and Dante Fabbro. One of them may be the obvious pick, but I’m going to go a different route and say Mattias Ekholm (No. 7 in penalty minutes last year).

As the 2019-20 season wore on, and into the Stanley Cup Qualifiers, Ekholm’s frustration started to grow more and more visible. If you want to talk about a defender who started to play some ticked off hockey, it’s Ekholm at the end of last year.

Going into the upcoming season, Ekholm may be a timebomb that either leads to strong physical defense that can produce offense on the other end of the ice, or he may be the reason the team is on the penalty kill more often than it would like to be.

Good thing is, he’s faster and even angrier coming out of the box.

Given that Ekholm is the second biggest defenseman currently on the roster, he’s going to be the player opposing teams do NOT want to tick off. On the strong chance they do, I’m betting he makes them pay for it, through either a solid defensive play, or possibly a questionable cross check…maybe even the good ole dropping of the gloves and settling it the way of our forefathers.

Mattias Ekholm is my 2021 Preseason “Absolute Liability”.

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