| Tuesday, October 24
By George Johnson
Special to ESPN.com |
|
For the second-year Nashville Predators, the honeymoon -- as idyllic as it was -- has passed. Now they're faced with the hard graft of day-to-day living.
"Too bad we couldn't have done this yesterday (Tuesday)," sighs David Poile, in the
middle of a telephone interview from his Miami hotel room. "We don't feel
very good about ourselves today."
The night before, in Tampa Bay, Poile's Nashville Predators had gassed a
four-goal lead and were forced to settle for a 4-4 tie and a single point
against the Bolts.
"We wouldn't," grumbles the general manager, "have blown that point last
year."
Yes, the bloom is off the rose. The shine has dulled. Only 365 days ago, they
were new, fresh, hip, trendy. Everything positive they accomplished was
unexpected, a bonus. Their 63 points were the third-highest total of any NHL
expansion team.
Now, they're just another mediocre club trying to make ends meet.
So far, it has been a difficult, frustrating season in Nashville. The
Predators are only three points behind their '98-99 30-game pace -- 22 as
compared to 25 -- yet the first two-and-a-half months of '99-00 are being
viewed as a disappointment.
"Last year," points out coach Barry Trotz, "everything we did was
overachieving. This year, everything we don't do is looked upon as
underachieiving."
It's all perception.
"We created our own monster," Trotz said. "And that monster is 28 wins. Why,
at the start of last year we figured if we could somehow get to 20 wins, it'd
be a great season. Well, we hit 28 and, believe me, it felt wonderful.
"But now what's acceptable? Thirty? Thirty-two? And is whatever's acceptable
realistic?"
By all estimations this season, the Preds are bigger, younger and faster.
What seems to be missing are those intangibles that made them such an
unexpected joy right out of the gate last year.
"We don't seem to get that big save when we really need it, like last year," Trotz said. "Or that guy who steps up and makes the big play or scores the
big goal. The feeling is ... different. Definitely ... different."
To complicate matters, almost the entire Western Conference has beefed up.
Eight teams are over .500. The Sharks, Kings and Coyotes have made tremendous
strides. After a rough start, Calgary appears improved. The Blues are for
real. Edmonton is better than it's showing. The Stars and Avs may not be at
the level we're accustomed to seeing from them, but when all is said and done,
they'll be at the head of the line, contending again.
And Poile fully understood going in that the second year for an expansion
franchise is guaranteed to be far more challenging than the first.
"No, it's no big shock to us," he said. "Last season a lot of players were
being given the chance of a lifetime, and they responded with so-called
'career' years. But what do they do for an encore? Now, expectations are
higher, among the team itself, the fans and a portion of the media. The bar
has been raised, and a lot of them have already peaked out.
"There's more of an unpredictability to us this year. And I don't mean that
in a positive sense. The good thing is that our fans have remained fantastically loyal. We've had no drop-off in support. I think they understand what we're trying to do. It's
just too bad we've played better on the road than at home."
The Preds still have 14 holdovers from their original 23-man roster of
opening night 1998. Unheard of, Poile says, for an expansion team a year
later.
To that end, the GM and the rest of the management team are in the process of
weeding out the complacent, the temporary, the deficient. Historically,
expansion teams go through a tremendous amount of change their first few
years of existence. It's the age-old 'take one step backward today in order
to take two steps forward tomorrow' routine. But that takes time, and patience,
particularly in today's result-driven, talent-drained NHL.
Nashville has added young players like David Legwand, Kimmo Timonen
and Karl Skrastins. Patric Kjellberg has all the makings of a dynamic
presence. In the long run, the Preds will be better off. Problem is, it's
increasingly tough to sell the long run to anybody in this business anymore.
"We can't sneak up on teams anymore," Trotz said. "Last year, we'd go into
buildings and players on other teams were asking themselves 'Who ARE those
guys?!' Talk about no respect. ... Well, by beating a lot of those teams last year, we earned a measure of respect. Now we have to deal with the consequences.
"We don't have a guy we can tie a rope to and say 'OK, pull us.' Like
Colorado does with (Joe) Sakic. Or Dallas with (Mike) Modano. Or Detroit with (Steve) Yzerman. Or
even Calgary with (Pavel) Bure. We have Cliff Ronning, who's been a pretty consistent
point producer throughout his career, but it's a tough, tough thing to carry
a team on your back when things aren't going well.
"Last season, a lot of guys we're playing regularly in the big leagues for
the first time. Going to new cities, getting paid great money. There was a
vibrant energy to everything we did. You could feel it. Some of that is
missing now."
The rest of the West
With the $3 million goalie (Grant Fuhr) picking up splinters on the end of
the bench, the $350,000 goalie (Fred Brathwaite) is pulling the Flames back
into the playoff picture. Brathwaite's high point was undoubtedly a
glittering 49-save performance in a 1-1 tie at St. Louis on Tuesday. It really didn't
impress coach Brian Sutter, though. "Let me tell you something about shots on
goal," he lectured. "We went into Colorado a couple weeks ago and directed
87 shots at their net. They had 19 at ours. They won 7-1. That tells you what
I think about shots on goal."
The Oilers, of course, are having all kinds
of problems on the road this year, where they've won three games (the
team worst in a non-lockout-non-strike year is 10, set in 1992-93). Even when
they win, they lose. The other night, they beat the Islanders,
but lost captain Doug Weight to cracked ribs. Then, they poked a hole in their
aircraft loading equipment bags at JFK airport and were forced to find
alternative lodging for the evening.
The division among the Oilers
37-man ownership group is very, very real. They are at odds on the autonomy
of GM Glen Sather, on ways to keep costs down and an offer by owner Bruce
Saville to buy out fellow owners Cal Nichols, Al Owen and Gary Gregg. How
anybody could realistically expect an operation to run smoothly with so many
bosses remains mind-boggling.
Quote of the week:
"From where I stood, it didn't look like an intent to injure. But guys know
what they're doing with the crosscheck. I should know. I played against a lot
of them," -- Oiler coach Kevin Lowe, on the Gino Odjick cross-check that
cracked an undisclosed number of Doug Weight's ribs.
George Johnson covers the NHL for the Calgary Sun. His Western Conference column appears every week during the season on ESPN.com. |  |
