Daily Faceoff Live: Taking a look at the Minnesota Wild and Nashville Predators’ playoff chances
On Monday’s edition of Daily Faceoff Live, Tyler Yaremchuk and Mike McKenna take a look at the Minnesota Wild and Nashville Predators and discuss whether either of these teams has playoff chances.
Tyler Yaremchuk: These two teams have kind of been on rollercoaster rides early in the year, are you buying one of these teams and their playoff chances in what would be a mid-season turnaround?
Mike McKenna: Yeah I’m buying the Minnesota Wild. To me, Nashville’s depth hasn’t been there all season long. It’s really taken Juuse Saros catching fire and some of their best players carrying that team. Saros has lost two in a row and the Predators lost two in a row. Previous to that, he was 7-1 and his advanced stats actually make him look a lot better than traditional metrics. I think that Nashville in general is just loose, think about this, Tanner Jeannot had 24 goals last year and he’s on pace for 10 this year. That’s the type of depth scoring that hasn’t been there. For Minnesota, this team has eight players who are in the double digits for scoring, and Minnesota has someone like Kirill Kaprizov who can win games single-handedly.
The biggest difference for me Tyler, if I think about Nashville, that’s a team that has to work hard every single night to get a point. If you’re Minnesota, they still have the skill that even if they’re not playing their best game, they can still grab points. They have superstar power, they have more depth and the X-factor here is that Marc-Andre Fleury only has a .892 save percentage so far this year. He’s got more to give, he’s never been below 90% in his career and I think as his play improves for the Wild they’re going to keep moving forward, whereas Nashville to me they are a streaky team. If the work ethic isn’t there, they don’t win games.
Tyler Yaremchuk: I think that’s a great point. Kaprizov will put on a show, score a goal on the power play, and it’s like “okay we didn’t have our best, but we still brought the game to overtime and found a way at to squeak out a one-goal win.” With Nashville, they just don’t have that high-end offensive skill that can bail them out. It’s really hard to be the hardest-working team on the ice 82 times over the course of a long, gruelling regular season. That’s why it was surprising for me to see Nashville put Eeli Tolvanen on waivers. A guy that over the course of his career has averaged 15 goals every 82 games. This is a guy who I think teams can look at and go “hey maybe a change of scenery is all he needs.” I know there’s been a lot with him, more than just the goal-scoring they’re concerned about. But Mike I feel like this is a guy who is a lock to get claimed.
Mike McKenna: It seems like it. Sometimes players slip through the cracks, you never know a specific need. But if you got a guy who is potentially a 20-goal scorer, which to me, doesn’t seem out of the ballpark for Tolvanen if he’s put in the right situation. I think it can happen, especially on a lesser team. I’m with you, I think he gets claimed but it is surprising to see him essentially be cast off by Nashville.
You can watch the full episode here…