Nashville Predators Key Stat Leaders: Forsberg Charges Offense, McDonagh's Defense

Takeaways: Ryan O'Reilly

Everyone has raved heavily about O'Reilly since he joined the Predators, as he makes a huge impact on the ice and in the locker room. For all the praise he has gotten especially on the ice, people around here do not talk enough about how good of a two-way player he is, despite him winning a Selke Trophy in 2018-19.

You can just see on the ice the work he does at both ends, and him leading the team in takeaways perfectly illustrates that. He has 27 on the year, and nobody else is even remotely close, Forsberg is next with 17 of them.

O'Reilly just battles everywhere, and most games you can recall an instance or two where you just think "what a defensive play by him, that is why he is a Selke Trophy winner and always in the mix."

What is surprising about this stat for the Predators is that not only is there not a defensemen anywhere near O'Reilly, they are not even near the top of the list. McDonagh is the top defenseman on the list, and he is only ninth on the list with eight of them on the year.

You would think that a statistic like this would favor defensemen, since they are the ones who most often disrupt the offense and overall puck flow of other teams. Regardless, this is a stat that measures how much you are working and battling on both offense and defense, and moreso than anyone else, we can see that O'Reilly is just everywhere for this Predators team.