Buckle up, Smashville. Your Nashville Predators are postseason bound.
Erasing a two-goal deficit in the third period to force overtime against the Winnipeg Jets on Tuesday, the Predators earned the only point needed to cross the finish line on a Stanley Cup Playoffs berth.
For the team that’s been down but never out countless times during the 2023-24 campaign, a more poetic clinching performance simply couldn’t be written.
“Being an underdog, you kind of get to where you're proud of it,” Predators Head Coach Andrew Brunette said following Tuesday’s game. “When you wake up every morning, usually there's no better motivation than proving people wrong. And maybe we wear that a little bit.”
Indeed, the Predators have been proving people wrong all year.
“There was a lot of outside noise coming into the season with some of the moves that were made, but honestly in the room, we never had a doubt that we were a good team,” Predators forward Luke Evangelista said. “We still had a bunch of star players to start the year, and in the offseason we picked up a bunch of veterans and a bunch of guys with experience and Stanley Cups. So we were confident going into the year, and obviously didn't have the start we wanted, but knew we could turn it around. So, to be here and finally punch our ticket to the dance, it's an awesome feeling.”
“We've come together great as a group,” forward Michael McCarron said. “Obviously with a new coach and a new GM, nobody picked us to make the playoffs in the first year of their leadership. And it’s been good. We obviously struggled off the start, and that's going to happen with new systems and everything, but we were able to find a way as a group and we've come together pretty close. And we're a scary team. We play to the last whistle.”
While the Predators have certainly been a daunting opponent for just about everyone in these past few months, that wasn’t the case out of the gate.
Games got away from them early. Opponents mounted late pushes that proved overwhelming. By the time the Predators reached mid-November, a 5-10-0 record and a five-point gap between them and the Western Conference’s final playoff spot all but verified the early growing pains.
Still, the faith inside the locker room never wavered, and the Predators shook off their sluggish start by winning six in a row and grabbing points in 20 of the 33 games between Thanksgiving and the All-Star break.
Even after suffering a four-point backslide out of the break - including a discouraging 9-2 home loss to the Dallas Stars - the Predators took another hard look in the mirror and disembarked for a five-game road trip eager to prove the naysayers wrong once more.
Of course, the ensuing five-game road sweep - a franchise first - would be enough to make any team happy.
The Predators weren’t satisfied.
Returning home, they’d win three more to match the second-longest winning streak in franchise history.
Still, there was more to prove.
The Predators would earn points through 10 more, enough to not only best the longest point streak in franchise history and the 2023-24 NHL campaign, but to propel Nashville to the first Wild Card spot in the West, and ultimately, the 16th postseason berth in franchise history as well.
With the biggest test just around the corner, the relentless Predators likely aren’t done making waves just yet.
“We're just getting started,” forward Ryan O’Reilly said. “We do the right things and we’ve [been able] to become part of something good. And this is just the start of that. We know there’s a lot of work ahead of us and I think we can have success, but it's going to be a lot of hard work and something to look forward to. I’m for sure proud of the boys for getting in. It's not an easy task.”
“I don't know if we're ever satisfied,” Brunette said. “But I'm proud of where we're at. We’ve got a lot of work to do, and we could be better in a bunch of different areas, but we're working on it and we're growing.”
With the coveted X now alongside their name in the standings and three games left to play, the only unknown remaining is Nashville’s first round opponent. Regardless of who it ends up being, the Predators know they can’t go into battle without the Seventh Man at their backs.
Single-game tickets for the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs go on sale to the general public on Thursday, April 11 at 10 a.m. CT.
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