Nashville vs Colorado

Who Are They

Nashville

The Nashville Predators lead by Robertus Robbie Robert finished 2nd in the Central Division this season. While no superstar immediately jumps out at you, Nashville has a lot of young talent including Dylan Holloway, Protas and Lafreniere. Leading the forward core is Kevin Fiala and Bo Horvat. Fiala with 43 goals in the regular season is a threat to any team and Horvat past the 100 point mark with 101 this year. Jeremy Swayman in net was just ok, sporting a 2.58 GAA and a 903, more will be expected of him if the Preds are to make a deep run. The Preds defence is lead by Esa Lindell and Jakob Chychrun. The Preds have offensive potential to their backend that wasn’t quite realized in the regular season, guys like Chychrun, Byram, and Chabot should provide some extra goals from the point. These Preds made a deep run last season, only getting clipped in the conference final by none other than their first round opponent Colorado Avalanche.

Colorado

These Colorado Avalanche have been nothing to fuck with. Lead by superstars Mitch Marner and Filip Forsberg, the Avs had a quieter season offensively this year, with only Marner breaking through 60 points, ending with 86 points on the year. The defending Cup Champions are without Pierre Luc Dubois who put in a masterful performance last playoffs finishing with the lead in Colorado’s goal scoring with 11. They are going to have find those goals somewhere else if they have a hope of repeating this season. There defensive is solid but aging, with the 37 year old Kris Letang and 34 year old Torey Krug taking up some of the offensive duties from the point. They also have defensive stalwarts Darnell Nurse and Adam Larsson to steady and calm the play. In net, the Avs have replaced Vitek Vanecek with Samuel Ersson who put up a respectable 35-31-8 with a 2.53 and 913%.

Head to Head

Colorado won 3 and Nashville won 1 in the regular season

X Factor

It’s easy to go to goaltending here but I think the bigger X Factor is the Predator’s defence. If they can contribute to the points in a way they simply did not in the regular season, then the Preds are ready to make another long run, this time with the Avs as their first victim. Unfortunately, there isn’t a history of this defence rising to the occasion.

Prediction

Avalanche in 6