Before the start of the playoffs, Nashville Predators General Manager David Poile said his team’s first-round matchup with the Chicago Blackhawks was reminiscent of 2012, when the Predators met the Detroit Red Wings for the third time in the postseason.
Fewer than two weeks later the feeling is not much different.
Nashville finished off Chicago 4-1 on Thursday and completed the first playoff sweep in franchise history. It also exorcised the demons of two earlier six-game eliminations (2010 and 2015) and a whole lot of regular-season frustration with the Blackhawks.
The feelings of accomplishment and euphoria at Bridgestone Arena once it ended, and the manner in which the Predators advanced, were undeniably similar to the five-game destruction of Detroit five years earlier. In both cases, a young, hungry Nashville team made a proud franchise flush with Stanley Cup success look old, tired and completely outclassed.
Now, though, things have to be different.
Chicago was a tough hill to climb. No question about it. In winning the series so decisively (a 13-3 edge in goals) the Predators created the impression that they have a chance to make a deep run in these playoffs. They might even have a legitimate shot to win the whole thing.
The same was true five years earlier after they got past Detroit. In this franchise’s first decade or so, the Red Wings were the team to beat, in the division and in the league, and the Predators did not do so all that often. Not in the regular season. Not in their first two tries in the postseason, including their first-ever playoff appearance.
Once they finally climbed that mountain, the only direction they went was down.
Nashville followed up its 2012 elimination of the Red Wings with unquestionably its worst playoff performance. It produced just nine goals and lost in five games to an underwhelming Phoenix team in the second round. Along the way, franchise officials and coaches overreacted to a decision by a couple players to stay out after curfew. In so doing, they turned what should have been an in-house disciplinary issue into a national story that lingered through the rest of the series and cast a pall over the locker room.
Believe it or not, things got even worse from there. The Predators didn’t even make the playoffs either of the next two seasons. Then, as part of realignment in 2013, Detroit moved to the Eastern Conference and their primary focus was gone.
All that thought. All that effort. All that time and energy spent trying to match up with and — eventually — overcome Detroit ultimately meant next-to-nothing in the evolution of the franchise.
If dominating Chicago is going to be worth anything, these Predators (let’s be clear, this is a different group of players and coaches) have to make something of this big step.
Sure, the view from here looks pretty good as of Friday morning. But there are more summits to reach, including one atop which sits a certain 34 ½-pound, 127-year-old silver chalice.
Right now it feels as if Nashville has never been so close to getting there.
But it has. And it turned out that the fall was a doozy. No one wants to go through that again.
The idea is for the Preds to continue the climb — even if they’re not looking up at the Blackhawks anymore.
