According to the Canadian sports channel Sportsnet, in the salary cap era (2005-), no NHL team has made it to the playoffs after starting the season with five losses.
This is realism and a challenge faced by the pride of the music village, Juuse Saros represented by the Nashville Predators is after the first couple of weeks.
The shock treatment at the beginning was of fundamental quality for a team that strengthened significantly in the summer. From the first five matches, there was no point on the way.
It didn’t help, even though the club was downright rampant in the summer player market. Haavi was caught, among other things Steven Stamkos mixed Jonathan Marchessaultthe former from Tampa, the latter from Vegas. The duo has won a total of three Stanley Cups and played in the finals six times. A high-quality all-around defender was recruited from Carolina for the defense Brady Skjei.
So why did the machine cough?
Wins with a weak game
Nashville’s biggest problem is that they don’t play very good hockey. This is where the head coach turns by Andrew Brunette in the direction of.
Nashville is a team that strives for fast vertical hockey, but the game is not very well organized. A good example of this was the Boston match earlier last week. Although Nashville won the game, it had major problems, starting with the opening game.
Brunette wants to play her country to The Ramones tempo, which shows in the sense of urgency and constant forcing of the game upwards. The puck is pressed into the center and the flanks, whether there is space available to build the game or not. Boston created numerous scoring opportunities from exploits. In the past, Detroit and Seattle punished the team for reckless pushing with several hits.
In the weekend’s victorious games against weak Chicago and Columbus, the situation was similar. Nashville wastes a huge amount of pucks by recklessly splashing the play equipment at any time. Columbus scored two goals on Sunday after “nobody’s” pucks.
When Nashville loses the puck in their own zone or in the middle zone, the play flows towards their own goal quickly and even against a disorganized five. The support is often not close because the attackers tend to run away and stretch the field.
Once in the offensive zone, Nashville is strong. The Predators have skill and are a strong corner and end play team. This is reflected in the number of goals. In both Florida and Nashville, Brunette’s teams have scored a lot of goals, but also conceded a lot of them. In brunette hockey, the doors are open in every direction.
And, when the tendon breaks, the mark is dull. Montreal seeded Florida 10–2 in Brunette’s season, Tampa and Ottawa with eight hits, New Jersey and Toronto with seven hits. My network owled with an average of more than three. Last season, Nashville collapsed once at home to a 2-9 loss and allowed at least five goals twelve times. Again with an average of over three.
The puck game needs rhythms
Brunette has said he drew on the aggressive offensive game template from Chicago’s dynasty coach From Joel Quenneville and from the legend of defensive game philosophy From Jacques Lemaire.
The craziest thing is to talk about Brunette and Lemaire in the same sentence.
During Lemaire’s New Jersey years, the Devils allowed the fewest goals in the NHL. In the Minnesota years, the ranking was fourth. Nashville’s defensive play is average on a general level, but as a whole, the organization of the five game is far from Lemaire’s level.
Is it a coincidence that Juuse Saros saved the previous head coach by John Hynes in the last season (2022-2023) 46 goals more than expected, but both seasons of Brunette are in the red? Saros hasn’t always been at his best last season or this fall, but I don’t think it’s a coincidence when it comes to these numbers either.
Or is it a coincidence that Stamkos, who profiles as a 40-goal man, has 1+0 and -8 in his first eight games? The structure and quality of Nashville’s game does not support the strengths of the top players.
Brunette should calm Nashville’s puck play. Instead of constant forcing, the game should be able to rhythm. One could imagine that this would suit the aging core players better. The tighter the position and the tighter the five in front, the more difficult it is for Brunette’s teams to play on the puck and score goals.
Tampa stopped Florida as if against a wall in the spring of 2022. Florida, which was beaten with open doors in the regular season with five against five, scored two goals. Last spring, in the last four playoff games against Vancouver, Nashville had five hits.
In the pipes
Due to structural problems, Nashville is profiled as a pipe team. From time to time the game goes by and the charm may turn into a long winning streak, but in the long run the endless Pushing leads to problems. Last spring, Nashville played 17 games without a loss in regular time. However, that is not the truth.
If the 17-game hot streak from February to March is excluded from Brunette’s win record in Nashville, it is recorded at 36-42.
After a hot streak including the spring playoffs and this fall, it’s 9-13. Modest balances. It is relevant that Brunette herself has said that she hears from time to time inside the coaching legend Lemaire’s talking head.
– Sometimes I hear him say: “slow down the game, slow down the game”.
Sometimes you should listen to the voices inside your head, especially now.
Nashville is like Eppu Normaali from the 1970s-80s, who got stuck in the Ramones tempo in his punk pursuit. There was a huge rush to call. The legendary pump from Ylöjärve became a “winning orchestra” and an iconic part of Finnish rock only when it lowered the tempo, calmed down the playing and started to introduce more versatile chord patterns into its music.
The same is ahead in Nashville. The aging core group needs peace to play, not headless running. It is up to Andrew Brunette to make the necessary changes to the game. Otherwise, the season of big investments will be an inevitable disappointment.
It’s a different matter if an inexperienced pilot has the tools for it.