Through five games, Jets simply are better
Sometimes the other team is just better than your team.
Predators fans are coming around on that concept after the Winnipeg Jets throttled their team 6-2 on Saturday night at Bridgestone Arena to take a 3-2 lead in the Western Conference semifinals. The Predators shouldn’t be expected to acknowledge as much until after they’re defeated for a fourth time and go through a sad handshake line.
But the sad handshake line is looming. Monday’s Game 6 at Winnipeg’s Bell MTS Place will either bring these teams together to say their goodbyes – with the Jets moving on to the Western Conference finals and the Predators to a long summer of discontent – or produce this series’ latest zig when the safe money was on a zag. Nashville must come up with its most impressive response to adversity yet to force a Game 7 on Thursday at Bridgestone Arena.
That was the stated plan late Saturday, with defenseman P.K. Subban saying three times in a row that the Predators “will” win Monday to extend this series and their season. He said the same thing after the Predators lost the first two games at Pittsburgh in last year’s Stanley Cup Final, and they responded with two wins before eventually losing the series 4-2. No one else joined him Saturday in making declarations, but coach Peter Laviolette came closest.
“We had to go to Winnipeg anyway, right?” Laviolette said. “We were going there anyway. The plane was already booked. They’re ready to go. There’s no group that I’d rather be with to win one hockey game than this group.”
Anything can happen in one game between these teams, as illustrated in the past two. Before the Jets took apparent control of the series, the Predators took apparent control of the series with a stifling 2-1 win at Winnipeg in Game 4. But if the Predators are going to play beyond this week and make it to the halfway point of their ultimate goal, they are going to have to break a troubling tendency of this postseason.
They are going to have to deliver two complete performances in a row.
Nashville has risen to the moment each time it has been required this spring. The Predators were so-so overall in building a 2-0 series lead over Colorado in the first round, got thumped in Game 3 on the road, then tightened the defensive screws to win Game 4. After blowing Game 5 and a chance to advance, the Predators went to Denver for Game 6 and dominated the Avalanche in a 5-0 thrashing.
The Jets got them 4-1 in Game 1 at Bridgestone Arena. The Predators responded with a clutch, 5-4 double-overtime equalizer. The Jets turned a 3-0 deficit in their building in Game 3 into a 7-4 runaway. The Predators played their best defensive game of the playoffs in Game 4. A couple of bad bounces and some precise Winnipeg execution contributed to the Jets’ takeover in Game 5, but so did some atrocious defensive mistakes.
The Predators still haven’t put together two thoroughly excellent games in a row. There is no longer a choice; that’s what it will take to beat the Jets twice. On the flip side, they haven’t produced two stinkers in a row during these playoffs, either. But it’s going to take something special to avoid Monday night handshakes.
It will not require a change in goaltender. There is no Laviolette lineup adjustment that can be counted on to create magic. We’ve talked a lot about which forwards are playing, but if Nashville’s star defensemen don’t start playing – doing more offensively and making fewer critical mistakes in the defensive zone – the lineup is moot. This is about composure, discipline and opportunism from all 19 Predators who take the ice Monday.
“We’ve got to play our game,” Predators center Ryan Johansen said. “We’ve got to stick to what makes us successful against this team; just go up there and find a way to win a hockey game. It’s not going to be a perfect game, but we’ve got to do the best we can to execute a game as consistently as possible. And we believe we have the personnel to do it.”
If they don’t do it, the analysis of all that went wrong to derail Nashville’s Stanley Cup hopes must start with this: Winnipeg was better.
Reach Joe Rexrode at jrexrode@tennessean.com and follow him on Twitter @joerexrode.