Nashville Predators Quarterly Report Card: They Are So Grounded
By Colin Blouin
Offense: D+
The Nashville Predators have been absolutely atrocious on offense outside of Herculean efforts by Filip Forsberg, and strong, but not always results-producing, efforts by Matt Duchene. The offense is the opposite of aggressive. A convent full of nuns would be more aggressive on the ice than most of these guys.
On my patented (pending) dog-intimidation-scale, if the Lightning are a German Shepherd trained in home protection, the Predators are a Pomeranian blind in one eye and missing most of its teeth (sorry Pomeranian owners).
The habits to break, and to bring this grade up, include more high danger shots and better utilization of offensive zone time, not shooting from 25′ feet out and making it so obvious that the goalie has time to take a selfie while making the save, and not mishandling the puck resulting in a reset of the offensive momentum. Aggression is the name of the game, but not at the expense of smart hockey.