Three losses in four days to St. Louis and Detroit recall the franchise's formative years

All of a sudden it feels like the old days. And not in a good way.

Within a span of four days, the Nashville Predators lost three times: twice to the St. Louis Blues and once against to the Detroit Red Wings. The Predators fell behind 2-0 in each and never led in any.

Is this meant to be some sort of throwback stretch of hockey in honor of the Predators’ 20th season? If so, people should have been warned.

After all, these are teams to which Nashville has paid little to no mind in recent years.

The Red Wings and Predators have not been in the same division or conference since 2012-13. Not only that but the last time they met in the playoffs (2012), Nashville made quick work of things and advanced to the second round in just five games. Detroit has missed the playoffs the last two seasons (the current one will make it three) and have not won a playoff series in six years.

The Blues have finished ahead of the Predators in the Central Division standings much more often than not, including as recently as 2016-17. That season, of course, was the only time the two teams have met in the postseason, and St. Louis ended up second-round road kill as Nashville raced to the Stanley Cup Final.

Yet here we are. With its 3-2 victory over the Predators on Tuesday at Bridgestone Arena, Detroit became the first Eastern Conference team this season to sweep its two-game season series with Nashville. That followed the back-to-back losses to the Blues on Saturday (at St. Louis) and Sunday (in Nashville), which guaranteed Nashville would end up on the short end of this season’s five matchups.

Back when the Predators were just getting started, it was common for the Red Wings and Blues to have their way with their newest division rival. Those were the days was when there were still plenty of seats to be had for pretty much any of the 41 home games, when stars the caliber of Pekka Rinne and Filip Forsberg seemed out of reach and when expectations were — to borrow from T-Pain — low, low, low, low.

During its first five seasons in the NHL, Nashville won just six times each in 27 tries against both Detroit and St. Louis. Then, a stretch such as this could have happened at any time and no one would have thought twice about it.

But when it takes place nearly three-quarters of the way through the 2018-19 season, no one is really sure what to think. The sellout crowds that fill Bridgestone Arena on a nightly basis want to believe that Nashville remains a team that can — and will — make a deep run in the postseason. A couple of trades last week theoretically made the club stronger and better equipped to make that run.

Yet with those last three results over the past several days, this team is much more reminiscent of those from the expansion years than it is the ones that have provided so much excitement in recent seasons.

Let’s be clear: A three-game losing streak is not the end of the world. It speaks to the standard set in later seasons that it feels that way.

Based on the opponents, though, it does stir memories of the early days of the franchise. It was a time when the Predators would be lauded for even managing to overcome the early deficit and even the score at some point, which they did in two of the last three. It was a time when everyone counted on the fact that someday this team would be good enough to make the playoffs rather than start the countdown to the postseason right from the start of the regular season.

The obvious truth is that this current team is nothing like those early ones. It just needs to show as much.



