Looking Back at the Five Best Regular Seasons in Nashville Predators History
By Chad Minton
2017-18 Nashville Predators: 117 PTS, 1st In Central Division
Leader in PTS: Filip Forsberg- 64
Leader in Goals: Viktor Arvidsson- 29
Starting Goalie: Pekka Rinne- 42 Wins, .927 SV%, 2.31 GAA Backup: Juuse Saros- 11 Wins, .925 SV%
There was little suspense involved that the Presidents Trophy season would be at the top of this list of best regular seasons in Predators history. The banner jokes were born out of this fateful season.
All of that aside, this team was a wagon for sure. They had just gone to the Stanley Cup Final unexpectedly and gave the Sidney Crosby led Pittsburgh Penguins a hard fight in six games, and should've gone seven.
You can also say that this was when the front office began to make some poor long-term signings, most notably the Kyle Turris signing that still haunts this team.
But just looking at the regular season, the Predators were extremely hard to score against thanks to Pekka Rinne's Vezina Trophy campaign with eight shutouts and a .927 save percentage. The emergence of Juuse Saros as his quality backup also helped in 23 starts with a .923 save percentage.
The Predators enjoyed balanced offensive output as well. They weren't top heavy by any means with Forsberg leading the team with 64 points, Arvidsson with 61 and Johansen with 54 to spearhead Nashville's JoFA line. Similar top line domination to what we're seeing currently with Ryan O'Reilly, Forsberg and Gus Nyquist.
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P.K. Subban going for 59 points as a defenseman, and Roman Josi chipping in with his normal offensive output of 53 points gave Nashville one of the best, if not the best, bluelines in the NHL that season.
Craig Smith and Calle Jarnkrok were key role players to the offense, and even Scott Hartnell made a return to Smashville at age 35 and chipped in 25 points.
The Predators were 7th in the NHL in goals scored with 261 and 2nd in goals against only allowing 204. Their penalty kill was 6th at 81.9 percent and their power play was just outside the top-10 at 21.3 percent.
Fast forwarding back to the current team, if they can just win seven of their last 12 remaining games they'll achieve the 100-point threshold for the 8th time in franchise history.
Does this team have a chance to be included in your top-5 best regular season teams in Predators history if they finish off strong in the final 12 games? Let me know @chad_minton on X.