Weekend Takeaways: Enigmatic Predators could be a real playoff pain

It’s hard to know exactly what you’re seeing when you look at the Nashville Predators.

The surging Preds won their eighth straight game on the weekend, blasting Central Division rivals the Colorado Avalanche 5-1 on Saturday night in Tennessee.

So what is Nashville?

This is a team long thought to be a trade deadline seller that suddenly has a strong hold on a wild-card spot. The Predators began charting a different course under a new coach (Andrew Brunette) and GM (Barry Trotz) this summer, yet they’re exactly where they always seem to be, in and around a playoff spot. Some new faces are driving the bus, but there’s not really a young gun in sight and the roster composition still feels quintessentially Pred.

Maybe all that’s required to highlight the contrasts in Nashville is to look at the Predators' season in four chunks. They started the year 5-10-0, then went 13-3-0 followed by a 9-12-2 stretch that preceded their current 8-0-0 run.

Dizzy yet?

All we really knew when Trotz took over in Nashville was that, for as much as he wanted to breathe new life into the organization, this was never going to be a teardown. Trotz bought out Matt Duchene, then immediately turned around and inked veteran Ryan O’Reilly to be the top-line centre.

O’Reilly, who scored his 22^nd goal of the year versus the Avs, has been terrific in Nashville. So has Filip Forsberg, who — after enduring a frightening concussion just over a year ago that ended his season prematurely — had an assist against Colorado, is on a five-game point streak and has 62 overall in 62 outings this year.

Of course, the story on Saturday was Cody Glass’s hat trick. Despite the outburst against the Avs, though, you could say that Glass is part of a crew of younger forwards along with the likes of Luke Evangelista, Philip Tomasino and Juuso Parssinen who — for one reason or another — haven’t quite made a leap forward this season.

Still, Roman Josi is doing his thing with 12 points during the eight-game winning streak, first-year Pred Gustav Nyquist has 10 in that time, and Juuse Saros — the goalie we thought the team might actually deal three weeks ago — has a .954 save percentage in his past six starts.

If you dig into the eight-game run a bit you will find five of the victories came against teams currently outside the playoffs, while two more — wins over Colorado and Vegas — occurred against playoff squads that are definitely not playing their best hockey right now.

Regardless, Nashville is averaging 4.6 goals-per-game during the hot strip and just 1.6 against.

Whatever the Preds are, when they’re at their best, they’ve got the potential to be a pain-in-the-butt playoff draw for either the Pacific or Central Division winner.

Other Takeaways

• Man, has the Florida Panthers’ status as the team to beat in the East — if not the entire league — come into the focus in the past couple weeks. In a possible first-round preview, the Cats drubbed the Red Wings 4-0 in Detroit on Saturday for their fourth straight win. Florida, the only team with a points percentage above .700 right now (.705), is a staggering 23-4-2 since Dec. 23. Sam Reinhart sniped his 42^nd of the year in the win over the Wings as the Panthers poured 37 shots on old friend Alex Lyon, while Sergei Bobrovsky — whose .918 save percentage is better than all but two goalies in the league who’ve played at least 35 games — had to stop just 21 pucks for his fourth whitewash of the year.

The success and stats are one thing, but everyone knows this chippy Florida team plays exactly the style of hockey that tends to succeed in the playoffs (as it obviously did for the Cats last spring). This is one for-real squad.

• Was this weekend the death knell for the Devils? Two games, two losses and nine goals against for Jersey, which lost 4-3 in Anaheim Friday and 5-1 to the Kings on Sunday. The Devils trail Philadelphia by seven points for third in the Metro while holding one game in hand. However, two clubs that hold a game in hand over New Jersey — the New York Islanders and Washington Capitals — are now closer to third-place Philly than Jersey is.

• Arizona entered the weekend on a 14-game losing streak, so it goes without saying wins in Ottawa on Friday and Washington on Sunday were extremely welcomed sights. Not only that, the Coyotes saw prized prospect Dylan Guenther have a five-point weekend, while fellow rookie Logan Cooley scored for the second time in three games. All of that is positive news for a club that desperately needed something good to happen.

Weekend Warrior

Hats were flying on the weekend as four guys — Predator Cody Glass, Islander Kyle Palmieri, Minny’s Kirill Kaprizov and King Phillip Danault — all posted three-goal games. Glass’s was the first of his career, Danault’s was his first with L.A., Palmieri’s was the third of his career and Kaprizov’s was his third of this season.

Red and White Power Rankings

1. Winnipeg Jets (39-16-5) The Jets traded for Sean Monahan a month ago because he was having a strong season in Montreal, where he had 13 goals. Well, the centre is already creeping up on that number with eight tallies in 12 outings as a member of the Jets. Monahan hit the back of the net twice in Winnipeg’s weekend wins in Carolina and Buffalo.

2. Toronto Maple Leafs (35-17-8) The Leafs are hot, winning again over the Rangers in a shootout on Saturday, but with newcomer Ilya Lyubushkin forced to leave the game after a big hit from towering Matt Rempe, you can’t help but wonder if GM Brad Treliving will scare up another D-man before Friday’s deadline

3. Edmonton Oilers (37-20-2) Connor McDavid went 1-1-2 on Sunday night as the Oilers downed Sidney Crosby’s Penguins 6-1. In his past 16 contests, 97 has an even dozen multi-point efforts. Unreal. 

4. Vancouver Canucks (39-17-7) What a weekend for Canucks fans, who can finally exhale after Elias Pettersson inked an eight-year extension with Vancouver on Saturday. A day later, Vancouver was getting a much-needed 2-1 win in Anaheim.

5. Calgary Flames (30-25-5) What are the odds Noah Hanifin is playing for the Lightning when the Flames visit Tampa on Thursday or the Panthers when they visit south Florida on Saturday?

6. Montreal Canadiens (23-28-10) Will David Savard be a member of the Habs when they host Toronto for the first time this year on Saturday? There’s a real, “will they, won’t they?” dynamic around the veteran, right-shot D-man because teams clearly covet him, but Montreal also greatly values the leadership he provides a green defence corps.

7. Ottawa Senators (25-31-3) Ottawa has lost four straight now after dropping games to Arizona on Friday and Philadelphia 24 hours later. You have to think there are a couple trade candidates on this team who can’t pack their bag quick enough this week.

The Week Ahead

• Monday brings a couple colossal Eastern Conference tilts, with the Panthers in MSG to battle the Rangers, while the Bruins visit Toronto (7 p.m. ET on Sportsnet and Sportsnet+). The Leafs and B’s will get after it again on Thursday in Boston. 

• As of Tuesday, we’re officially three-quarters of the way through the 2023-24 campaign.

• Sidney Crosby and the Penguins will visit Alex Ovechkin’s Capitals on Thursday. Both Pittsburgh and Washington lost on Sunday. The Penguins are almost surely out of the post-season now, while the Caps need about one more bad week to say the same. Have we seen our last true high-stakes game between Sid and Ovi?

• All the speculation (so fun, right?) comes to halt Friday afternoon as the trade deadline hits and we turn our attention to the stretch run.