New Season, Fresh Slate, But Same Struggles for the Nashville Predators?

Too Many Penalties

One the other side of things, not only were the Predators terrible on the man advantage, but they gave up the man advantage way too many times.

The Predators had the seventh highest number of power play opportunities against with 275. Lucky for them, they had killers that were phenomenal at what they did and had an 82.55% penalty kill rate.

In saying that, if each penalty the Predators took was a two-minute penalty, that would equate to 27 and a half periods of hockey that they would have played a man down. When you spend the equivalent to nine games over the course of an 82-game season, you don’t give yourself a chance to win most nights or score a lot of goals for that matter.

To put that into perspective, the Vegas Golden Knights, on their way to a Stanley Cup, had the fewest number of power play opportunities against at 195.  If you play a more disciplined style of hockey and take fewer penalties, you give yourself a better opportunity to win every time you hit the ice and the Golden Knights showed that last season in a big way.

Speed added into the lineup should help with this. When you are slower than the opposing team, you are more likely to commit those stupid minor penalties like the hooks, slashes, and trips. With Brunette focusing more on speed, I would expect for the Predators penalty minutes to drop this season.