Nashville Predators: Five Areas John Hynes Must Improve Upon Next Season
Decide on consistent lines
Most of the Predlines crew has covered this multiple times, so I won’t spend too long on it. But it is arguably Hynes’ most critical task heading into next year. Finding more consistency in the line combinations.
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Remember how the Nashville Predators had the same four lines almost every game down the final stretch of the regular season and were winning? That didn’t happen by mistake.
Then when Game 1 of the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs came against the Hurricanes, Hynes put together lines that could not be kept, and that game and the next one were the team’s worst losses of the series. It wasn’t the only reason they lost the series, but it played a part.
We cannot yet know what the team’s trios will look like at the start of next season, and will not know until the expansion draft at the very earliest. But based on how this past season ended, Hynes should have an easier time devising lines this time around with a full and normal offseason.
Team must play 60 full minutes
In the Predators’ ugly start to the season, one of the most aggravating aspects of the team was their inability to play a complete game. On many nights, they would put themselves in a two or three-goal hole, only to claw their way back and come up just short.
Of course, the failure to play 60 minutes became much less of an issue as the regular season went on, but would resurface from time to time.
Most notably, it happened in the team’s 4-3 overtime win in Columbus on May 3, and in the game in Chicago on April 21st that we do not like to talk about around here.
This theme partially reappeared in the playoffs as well, as the Predators were unable to hang onto third period leads in Games 3, 5, and 6. It was especially noticeable in Game 6, as the Predators had jumped out to a two-goal lead but seemed to sit on it until the Hurricanes tied it in the third. Even more frustratingly, they seemed to turn it on again immediately upon surrendering the goal.
Whether the Predators are ahead early in games or behind, they oftentimes seem to be unable to turn in quality performances throughout contests. If Hynes wants to take the next step as a head coach, that will be an area he has to fix.
Prioritize players over system
Statements such as this one are often exaggerations, but this might just be the area in which Hynes frustrated me most. We know the guy prefers to have a primarily defensive, physical team, but his insistence on his system has compromised his ability to adapt to his team when necessary.
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We have talked all about the quandary of Rocco Grimaldi and his benching, and whether or not we think he will be on the Predators moving forward. Why is this even a thing?
Because Hynes benched him, most likely due to him being small and subpar defensively. While at the same time, he is one of the hardest-working players on the team, and quietly, an offensively skilled one too.
Who would play in his place from night to night? Brad Richardson and Nick Cousins: two players who did not contribute much of anything all season, but were played likely due to them being physical veterans.
And I wrote a whole piece on Dante Fabbro’s benching during the playoffs, and how shocking it was that Ben Harpur struggling mightily was not enough for Hynes to play Fabbro.
One thing I didn’t mention in that article was that there is a chance that Harpur played due to his physicality, and if that is the case, that was a very rash decision on Hynes’ part.
In the Grimaldi and Fabbro situations, Hynes failed to play his best players, and no matter what kind of system you run as a head coach, you cannot do that. Not every player on the ice has to be super physical, and when that costs a team some quality production and performance, it is absolutely not worth it.
Less time in the defensive zone
If you were to look at the Predators’ goals against per game from March 15 to the end of the regular season, you would be quite impressed. Don’t let that fool you, because while Juuse Saros was amazing, the team in front of him did not always help him out.
In many of the team’s games, they would get heavily outshot, and perhaps in no two games was this more apparent than in the back-to-back home stint against the Florida Panthers, when they gave up 40 and 55 shots respectively.
There were also several games in which the Predators would surrender precious time in their own zone, and often, Saros would bail them out.
Even in Game 4 against the Hurricanes, the Predators got outshot 61-43 and were forced to spend much of their time defending.
It is great to have a lights-out goaltender to take the pressure off of the skaters, but relying on Saros the way the Predators did this past year is not sustainable. Hynes will have to adjust his system and ensure that they can be the offensive aggressors more often.
Fix (or at least improve) the power play
How many times have we heard this one by now? Well, apparently, too few times because the Predators themselves seem to have not gotten the message.
To be fair, Hynes himself does not run the power play, but can control who his assistants are, and even put some necessary pressure on them. One of those assistants is Dan Lambert, who, for the better part of his time on the Predators’ bench, has run an uninspired powerplay.
From the utter lack of creative passing and movement to the head-scratching deployments of the players on the ice, the team’s power play has been one of the most predictable in the NHL for the past two years (and longer), and Eeli Tolvanen’s injury in April exposed those deal-breaking flaws.
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If you’re going to run a strict 1-3-1, would you not want to put your shooters where they can just fire one-timers immediately upon receiving the puck?
It goes without saying that the Predators will not be a threat without a working power play in 2021-22, and Hynes either needs to tell Lambert to make some major adjustments, or bring in someone who can actually run a successful and dependable man advantage.