After a day off and a day of practice, the Nashville Predators head out on one of the longest road trips they have in the season. Their normal early November roadie that will take them to Denver and Dallas this week. SlapShot Radio will be part f an extended pregame for tomorrow night’s Colorado game, so please join us at 7pm on 102.5 the Game.
Heading into a week where both games are inside the division, Nashville has a chance to keep adding space between them and the rest of the conference. Creating the kind of separation important in a season.
As I write this, the Predators have a four point lead in the division and a three point lead in the conference. And they have built that lead by playing some very tough competition. It gets no easier this week as Nashville gets the hottest line in the league tomorrow night in Colorado. The Avalanche appear to be making the next step, from one hit wonder to contender.
In a strange travel quirk, the Predators will head back east a bit when they go to Dallas on Saturday night for a showdown with the Stars, then they head to Cali, for a Monday nighter against Anaheim and a visit to the Shark Tank on Tuesday before ending the roadie in Arizona on Thursday.
No easy roadie, to be sure. I will have a preview tomorrow of the Anaheim game, but I do want to address a story that just broke as I began writing this… the firing of Joel Quinneville in Chicago. Another colossal overreaction from the Chicago GM who seems to have established a habit of that. Yes… the Blackhawks have lost three in a row… but the construction of this team is NOT Joel Quinneville’s fault. You can only make so much chicken salad out of chicken… well… you know.
There is an old business joke about the executive that takes over a company… the exec he replaces tells him that she left three envelopes as advice for the new CEO and to use them when he gets in trouble. Sure enough, after the first six months, the company hits a rough patch and the new CEO decides to open one of the letters, it says… “blame your predecessor.” The CEO does that and survives the crisis. Another crisis arises about six months later and the CEO opens a second letter which tells him to “fire somebody/reorganize.” He does that and the crisis passes. But as we all know, another crisis would arise a few months later, but the CEO isn’t worried, he knows he has another envelope. He opens it. It says…
“Prepare three envelopes.”
The Chicago GM just opened his third envelope. The problem in Chicago isn’t behind the bench, it is with the construction of the team and the cap situation that the GM has not managed well.
Joel Quinneville will only be unemployed as long as he wants to. When St. Louis fired him, the Blues went on a downward spiral that they have yet to fully recover from. Don’t be surprised to see the same thing happen in Chicago.
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Random Notes
- I love the picture of Rocco Grimaldi standing next to Zdeno Chara on the Preds website… talk about Mutt and Jeff…
- There is a feel good story developing in Milwaukee as the Predators signed defenseman Matt Donovan to a two year, two way contract. Donovan has been lighting it up with the Ad’s, posting 12 points in 13 games.
- What an “all the feels” story with Brian Boyle, scoring a hat trick on Hockey Fights Cancer Night in Pittsburgh
- I feel the same way about John Stephens firing in LA… there’s a good coach that has just been put in really bad situation.
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