What The F*** Is Going On?

To everyone's surprise, at the 40-game halfway mark of the 2021-2022 regular season, the Predators sit with an embarassing 18-15-7 record and are currently out of a playoff spot. Struggling to string any kind of momentum together this season. Losing to teams they should not be losing to, and beating the top teams they should be having trouble against. It's another similar season in Tennessee, one that management has seen all too often. And quite frankly, GM Eric Wolf is getting exhausted of the same musical chairs playing all throughout the year, just for him to always be the one left standing without a chair to sit on.

The team has looked like a farcry from pre-season projections that had them pegged as a top 5 team in the league. "I can't make any sense of this season." Wolf said. "It's starting to feel like f***ing groundhog day. I wake up every morning, reminiscing of the success I thought we'd have at the beginning of the year, I think about how much talent we have on this team and we can't keep losing, but then I check the scores and see another loss on our schedule. And then I go back in denial, re-telling myself that when I wake up tomorrow, things will be different and we will start to go on a run. But we never do. We just keep losing, and that groundhog song is stuck in my head."

What's wrong with Nashville? "It sucks. I am just at that point where you begin to wonder if I am the problem, or what is wrong with the coaching and development staff or why can't our elite level players play as a cohesive group? You see much lesser talented teams with bare-bone rosters ahead of us in the standings and it really makes you scratch your head." Wolf quipped, "It feels like I am sitting here in my office wearing a f***ing spider-man costume telling myself 'it's gonna get better, we've been here before and always turn it around.', but is it? Who knows. All I know is I keep sitting here wearing this damn costume."

Which begs to question, many GMs in the league have taken notice of the Predators underachieving season, and have come calling expecting Wolf to be a candidate to sell some pieces. "Absolutely f***ing not. Why would I be selling? Look at this roster, it should be playing as a top 10, top 5 team in the league. Selling anything now would be moronic. We need to push forward. We need to be performing right now. There is nobody coming to the rescue. As a team, we need to take a good look at one another around the locker room and understand that if we are going to find success this season, we need to dig deep and believe in one another. This was the roster that we put together in the off-season, one we felt was the best Predators roster we've had to date. We had big aspirations to climb to the top of the central division and give a team like Dallas, who's been a thorn in our side for years, a run for their money. But instead we can't even sniff a playoff spot right now. There are teams at the top of this league this year that have no business being there, and the only way we are going to prove that is if we go out on the ice and play to the capabiltiies that this roster has. If we do that, then perhaps another deep playoff run is in the cards for us. But it's time to stop bitching and whining, and start playing, because like I said - there's no one coming to the rescue this season in Nashville. This is who we got, this is who we are." 

Interesting testaments coming from the Nashville front office. But who knows? Nashville is no stranger to underachieving regular seasons and then going on deep playoff runs, they are a customer no team really wishes to play in the first-round. With game-breaking talent in their top 6 in McDavid, Crosby, Hertl, Tarasenko, Hall, and Wilson, ones got to think they should be a favourite to make another run. There should be no reason they have struggled as much as they have this season, right...?

Right?