The Nashville Predators' season has not gone exactly as planned.
After a 3-0 shutout loss to the Los Angeles Kings on Monday, the Predators fell to 4-7-1 and find themselves stuck in the basement of the NHL standings.
It appears the frustration is now boiling over within the locker room.
"For myself, I did not generate nearly enough," Ryan O'Reilly told reporters after the game. "Just throwing pucks at the net, which is so stupid. I don't think I made any plays offensively or held on to the puck. We're not going to win like that.
"That was probably one of the worst games I think I've ever played."
O'Reilly registered just one shot on goal while playing 15:22. The 33-year-old has three goals and nine points through 12 games and is also a minus-5.
O'Reilly can sense that players are letting the on-ice results impact their mindset.
"Frustration's everywhere, you can feel it through our bench. Everyone feels it. We have to dig deeper to find a way out of it," O'Reilly said.
A big problem for the Predators to start the season has been their inability to score at a high rate, as they rank 29th in the league with 2.42 goals per game.
Nashville was viewed as one of the winners of the off-season after making big splashes in free agency, signing forwards Steven Stamkos, Jonathan Marchessault and defenceman Brady Skjei.
Given the firepower the team has, it is tough to understand the struggles to produce offensively but veteran defenceman Luke Schenn believes there hasn't been a big push to get to the scoring areas.
"There's a couple guys in the league that can wind it up, where they can play from the outside and create opportunities," Schenn said. "We've got a couple guys that can score from out there, but the majority of the goals are scored around the paint.
"I'm not singling anyone out, it's just facts. In order to win in this league, you've got to be good on the walls, you've got to be good at the lines, and you've got to be good around our goal. We've got a ways to go."
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