3 reasons the Nashville Predators didn't win the Stanley Cup
The Nashville Predators didn't win the Stanley Cup and were out in the first round.
The Nashville Predators were a great story this season. They weren't expected to do much coming in but everybody knows that they have talent to a certain level.
With Andrew Brunette coming in as the head coach, they knew they were getting one of the good young guys to come in for that job.
They have a great top-line center in Ryan O'Rielly which is a start. They have a Norris caliber goalie in Roman Josi.
They have a (despite a slightly down year) Vezina candidate in Juuse Saros. Those are usually three very good things to build around.
Unfortunately, they met their match this year when they took on the Vancouver Canucks in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Vancouver won the series in six games. These are the three biggest reasons that the Nashville Predators won't be winning the Stanley Cup this year:
The Nashville Predators didn't get enough scoring in this series
Filip Forsberg, who was their MVP amongst forwards this season, had six points in the six playoff games. Two of them were goals and four of them were assists.
He was also the only Predators player that had two or more goals. The team only scored 12 goals total and two of them were from him and he impacted six of them. There were ten other players with one goal. The rest of the roster had zero.
The next leading scorer on the team was Gustav Nyquist who had four points (1-3--4). That isn't good enough when you're trying to beat a stingy yet high-flying Canucks team.
Nashville didn't defend terribly in this series, but they couldn't score enough. This is something that Nashville must think about heading into the off-season.
The Vancouver Canucks have way more depth at every skater position
Although Juuse Saros is a Vezina contender most years (he has already won one), not many people would argue that Thatcher Demko didn't have a better year. He is nominated for the award for this season.
Either way though, it is fair to call that matchup even. That is until the Canucks use two other guys in the series that also get it done for them. Based on the final numbers from the series, both teams can't complain about the goaltending that they got.
When it comes to skaters, however, the Predators have nothing on the Canucks when it comes to depth. This was a low-scoring series but the overall skill of the Canucks showed up more throughout.
Yes, Forsberg is an incredible player but guys like Quinn Hughes, J.T. Miller, Elias Pettersson, and Brock Boeser all have amazing talent that could change a game.
They even made trades for guys like Nikita Zadorov and Elias Lindholm and they both hugely impacted this series. Vancouver might have not been able to get it done without the help of the Calgary Flames.
If Nashville wants to go from a Wild Card team that everyone respects to a true contender, their depth needs to be addressed because it didn't show up as well as Vancouver's in this one.
The Nashville Predators were unable to close out winnable games
The Nashville Predators could have easily won this series in six games. They only ended up with two wins but four total were in reach.
In game one of the series, the Predators had a 2-1 lead going into the third period. They then allowed the Canucks to score three unanswered goals in the third to win 4-2.
In game four, the Nashville Predators allowed the Canucks to tie the game with the goalie pulled and then Vancouver eventually won it in overtime. It was a horrific playoff loss for them.
In game six, they were tied 0-0 with about two minutes left in regulation but they allowed the Canucks to score late and win it in regulation. To a lesser degree, this is one they could have taken as well.
With those bad losses combined with their two actual wins, they could have won the series. Unfortunately, they were unable to close out the deal in a few of them when they had a chance.
Nashville will go into the off-season hungry and be ready for next year but they aren't winning the Stanley Cup this season.
feed