Hockey players often compare the excitement of Opening Night in the NHL to the feeling of a child waking up on Christmas morning. The only difference this time around is the real prize doesn’t arrive until nightfall.
But come Thursday evening at Bridgestone Arena, all of Nashville’s shiny, new toys - as well as some trusted favorites - will be on display as the Predators begin the 2024-25 season against the Dallas Stars.
One could argue it’s the most anticipated start to a season in franchise history, or at least in recent memory. Making the most dynamic impact in the League as free agency opened on July 1 will bring that excitement to the forefront.
And now, with training camp and the preseason in the rearview, the real thing is finally here.
“It's awesome,” Preds Alternate Captain Ryan O’Reilly said of the start to the season.
“We’ve got a great team this year, we worked hard this training camp and we're excited to get going. It’s been a long summer waiting to get back into it, and it's finally happening.”
“There's a lot of excitement in the locker room, and there's a lot of excitement around town,” Preds Captain Roman Josi said. “You can tell the fans are excited, which is a really cool thing. And the new guys have been here for for a while now - most guys came in early August - so we got to know everyone really well. They fit in perfect in the preseason, and I’m sure they're excited to see Bridgestone tomorrow night, which will be rocking.”
Indeed, the Smashville faithful will undoubtedly be thrilled to see offseason acquisitions Steven Stamkos, Jonathan Marchessault and Brady Skjei make their Predators debuts and join a team with high expectations from the outside.
Make no mistake, the Preds expect plenty of themselves as well, but those expectations only mean so much once the puck drops.
“No question, expectations have been raised for this group that was already really good last year,” Stamkos said. “We’ve got some guys that have come in over the summer, and we're looking forward to just building off that group [from last season]. We're not looking to come in here and do anything crazy. We're looking to be good teammates, be the players that management expects us to be as to why we got brought in here, and just be part of a great team.”
For Head Coach Andrew Brunette, who is set to enter his second season behind the Nashville bench, there’s one thing he wants to see from the start.
“My expectation is to get to our identity,” Brunette said. “If you get to your identity, you get to who you are and I’m very comfortable with that. I don't really look too long term. I think I said that a lot last year. I'm just looking for every game, and tomorrow's a new day. You’ve got to get a little bit better. We’ve got to be present every day. That's my expectation, and growth is my expectation.”
Having said that, Brunette also wants his players to embrace the aura that surrounds Opening Night and combine it with a simple yet imperative attribute of his hockey club.
“I really want to see the excitement and the work ethic, to play the way we want to play, to get back to our identity,” Brunette said. “It takes a lot of work, and we put a lot of work in through camp, and maybe not in that A-game mentality where we're playing [against other] teams’ top guys, so that'll be the little bit of the challenge. But I'm looking for that work ethic. I think we brought it all through camp. We need to bring it to play our style. It has to play. It has to have that A-plus work ethic, and I’m looking for that on Thursday.”
The Predators will have to do just that against a Dallas team that was one of the League’s best last season and once again has Stanley Cup aspirations this time around. Facing the Stars presents the perfect matchup right from the beginning, and the Preds are embracing the challenge.
“I love that for our group,” O’Reilly said of facing the Stars on Opening Night. “Dallas obviously [was] one of the better teams in the League the last few years, and it's going to be a great test for us. But, I think that's what we need. Obviously, preseason is preseason, you try to get going, but as you jump into the start of this, it's full bore. It's going to be a great experience.”
Of course, when the final horn sounds on Thursday night, the Predators hope to be the team walking off the ice with two points in the standings. But regardless of how the first outing plays out, Nashville knows this is just simply the start of a much larger journey.
And after all the prognosticating, practicing and preparing, they’re more than ready to see what they’re made of.
“We’ve got the pieces in this group to have success,” O’Reilly said. “The ultimate goal is to win the Cup, and I think we have a belief that we can. We have the pieces for it, but there's so much work that has to go into it. It’s not just something you have to want. It's going to be the details, and the effort we play with day in and day out will result in us competing for it. So, I think as a group, we have belief. We know the players that we have here, and we know we can do something special, but our focus is on the day-to-day in the first game and go from there.”
