It will take a sizable climb in the standings for the Nashville Predators to make the Stanley Cup playoffs.
As they travel to Calgary to face the Flames on Saturday, the Predators sit 13 points behind the pace for a ticket to the second season. However, after earning a 3-0 victory over the Vancouver Canucks — who currently are in the Western Conference’s second wild-card position — the Predators are hoping the calendar flip is the beginning of a new era this season.
“Undefeated in 2025,” said forward Steven Stamkos, who opened the scoring in Friday’s victory. “It was one of those games where maybe we didn’t necessarily have our best early. … Good teams find ways to win when it’s not necessarily their best. It’s a tough league to win in each and every night, so maybe we can build off that.”
The Predators have two more games before reaching their midway point in the season and are well aware how they have fallen short of expectations so far. For example, they have only four road victories this season (4-13-4), two of them in Vancouver.
However, this is a club that went on a torrid 16-0-2 run last season and vaulted into the playoffs.
“You have to build off something,” Stamkos said. “And at this point, with where we are in the standings, obviously we need points. And what do you have to lose, really? I mean, let’s go out there and not play scared to lose. Let’s go out and try to win.”
More performances akin to Friday’s victory will give them a chance.
“We did the things that make us a good team,” coach Andrew Brunette said. “We had some success and we had some opportunities offensively.”
The Flames are coming off a disappointing 5-3 loss to the Utah Hockey Club on Thursday in which they surrendered a 3-2 lead going into the third period.
It’s the first time Calgary has lost in regulation when leading after two periods this season.
“We definitely have to learn from it,” forward Ryan Lomberg said. “We’re at the point in the season where we want to push for the playoffs, so you can’t be trading wins and losses every night. We’ve got to understand that even when we don’t bring our best, we’ve got to find a way to win that game.”
The Flames have lost two of three games to fall out of a playoff position, and the disappointment in the defeat could not be missed.
“The line’s so hard to walk, it’s easy to go on either side of it,” forward Blake Coleman said. “I’d rather have 20 (angry) guys who care, than 20 guys that are tucking their tail between their legs and not involved in the game.”
Scoring has been an issue all season for the Flames, and so has their penalty kill, which has surrendered at least one opposition power-play goal in five consecutive games and is 29th in the league with a 71.7 percent kill rate.
“There are stretches of it where I feel like we’ve worked better as a unit, it’s just breakdowns,” coach Ryan Huska said after practice on Friday. “I feel like we are getting better. The numbers that we look at are starting to show it, the numbers that everybody sees are not. We are still giving up goals, and at the end of the day, it’s got to stop goals from going in the net.”
–Field Level Media
