2009-2010 Season Wrap Up: Part Two

6 Shea Weber – defense

This boy man is on his way to being one of the most sought after defensemen in the NHL. So I should not have to tell you how happy I am that Nashville gets to keep him around for another year.  Even at the end of next season, he’ll be an RFA and not a UFA.  David Poile better put up or shut up to keep him around.  There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that Shea Weber is a future captain of this team, just waiting for everything to fall into place.  The way he has handled himself in the last two seasons only further fuels my belief that this will come to fruition.  I am sure I said it at the end of last season and I’ll keep saying it until it happens.  Because IT WILL HAPPEN.  Shea, along with Ryan Suter, is the backbone of the Predators defensive core.  I don’t expect that to change anytime soon either.  I mean, he’s SHEA FREAKING WEBER.  Even Steve Sullivan says so.  You do remember the goal he scored in Vancouver where the puck went right through the net, right?  Yeah, it’s almost like Shea Weber is the Chuck Norris of hockey.  Everyone fears him and I hope he continues to play at a level where that fear doesn’t subside any time soon. 

8 Kevin Klein – defense

At the end of last season, the biggest discussion revolving around Kevin Klein was him getting more ice time once Ville Koistinen became the apparent odd man out.  Well, he definitely got more ice time this season.  It’s just (as previously discussed), the pairing of Kevin Klein and Dan Hamhuis often led to really bad things.  This was quite unfortunate because separately, both are solid defensemen.  Whatever magic the coaching staff seemed to think they would have together was all smoke and mirrors before too long.  Klein will be on the roster for at least three more seasons so he’ll have a chance to redeem himself, as long as he winds up with a new defense partner.  If David Poile can’t keep Hammer around over the summer, then all of the “split 2 and 8” talk will fade away.  Then Kevin can get back to channeling his inner Shea Weber; occasionally winding up for a slap shot from the point.  He’s gotten pretty good at that too.

9 Marcel Goc – forward

Not knowing much, if anything, about Marcel Goc before the start of the season, I wasn’t expecting great things out of him.  At the end of the season, I was happy to have him around because he put up his best season ever.  Goc seemed to click with every line, which bodes well for a player in the Predators system since Coach Trotz dabbles in amateur juggling throughout the season.  I never found myself yelling at Goc either, so he must have been doing something right.  For a guy who was floundering in San Jose, Nashville was surely a nice, refreshing change of pace.  Now, if only I can get past the fact that he always looks like he needs a good 20 hour nap…

10 Martin Erat – forward

Okay, I’m going to go ahead and admit right now that I thoroughly enjoy everything about Martin Erat’s play.  Yes, he might be frustrating sometimes and yes, he might not put up the numbers that most would expect from someone who gets paid so handsomely.  But you know what, he knows how to make up for it in the long run.  For all the bad mouthing that I heard in reference to him for the majority of the season, Erat still managed to come in second on the team for goals scored and total points overall.  Not that this was his best season ever but he could have finished far worse.  Sadly, I think Erat is doomed to another four years of ridicule and criticism based largely on the size of his contract.  I would love nothing more than for him to prove all his naysayers wrong in the coming seasons, if for no other reason than for my own personal happiness.  Plus, I love being right.

Next up: David Legwand, Dustin Boyd, Cal O’Reilly and Michael Santorelli 

Ugh, that’s going to be one tough group to write up.

2009-2010 Season Wrap Up: Part 1 of Many

So um, hi.  My name is Rachel. I like hockey.  Occasionally, I actually write about it too.  Guess it’s about time I scoop this blog out from the under the pile of crazy that has been my life for the past few weeks.  Truth be told, I usually take a break from the world of hockey once the Predators season draws to a close each year.  It just so happened that this year’s break was a bit extended, with my brother’s wedding just a few days after the unfortunate Round 1 exit and then the Nashville flooding as well as some other personal things all happening around the same time.  Realizing that soon enough, though, everyone’s hockey season will be at an end; it is high time for my annual post-season player-by-player write up. 

Taking into account the fact that everyone else has finished their thoughts on the season long ago, these write ups are more of an overall player performance review/where do we go from here kind of format.

2 Dan Hamhuis – defense

If there was one player more loved then hated then loved again this season, it couldn’t have been anyone else but Dan Hamhuis.  In a lot of ways, I feel like Hammer got the short end of the stick this year because of the unfortunate lack of chemistry with his defensive partner, Kevin Klein.  The majority of the season, fans called for Coach Trotz to “split 2 and 8” (a popular Twitter hashtag on @PredFans) and I was more than inclined to agree with that sentiment.  Dan is a solid defenseman and definitely has more NHL experience that Kevin.  Yet, instead of bringing Kevin up to a higher level of play, Dan seemed to struggle with some inconsistency while playing with his partner on the ice.  And for all the rumors and speculation over whether or not David Poile was going to give Hamhuis up before the trade deadline, I was one of the few who found that scenario less than appealing.  The team’s defense might be good, but it is still young.  Removing a “veteran” like Hamhuis would have made the defense much weaker in the weeks leading up to the post-season, something that could have wrecked the team’s chances of making it there altogether.  Whether or not Hammer will stay in a Predators jersey for seasons to come is still one of the biggest questions left answered, however.  And your guess is as good as mine as to the outcome.  If he does stick around, he at least deserves a different pairing on the ice because I can’t take another season of the two of them together. 

3 Wade Belak – forward

Oh, Wade Belak.  I’m not entirely sure why the Predators decided to sign him for another year, except for maybe giving him that one last shot at a Stanley Cup before his inevitable retirement.  Every team needs a good fighter and for the most part, Belak is the guy you want throwing punches on the ice.  Other than the occasional fight, he didn’t get much ice time and I don’t expect anything about this formula to change next season.  I don’t have anything against the guy because he’s definitely not as useless on the roster as the ill-fated Nick Tarnasky was.  Though perhaps Wade’s best contribution to the team is his off-ice hijinks, including Wade’s World (see below).  If he decides against a post-hockey firefighting career, he could definitely make a go of it in the entertainment world.  He’s got a knack for the funny.

Next up: Shea Weber, Kevin Klein, Marcel Goc and Martin Erat. 

I had ease back into things or I would have done a couple more guys this go around.

Above The Water

Photo by Larry McCormack/The Tennessean

The events of the past few days have been a dizzying, rain-soaked whirlwind of epic proportions.  I was in Virginia watching my brother get married on Saturday (congratulations Jared and Megan!) but thanks to the always-plugged-in world of Twitter, my friends and I were able to figure out there were some major happenings going on in our fair city.  We even left Virginia a day early to head off the second wave of storms promised over Nashville.  Thankfully, we rode right under the passing storms all night and made it safely back to the Music City.  Safe in the comfort of our respective homes, we sat glued to the TV as we watched the events of a record two-day rain unfold before us.  As each new image flashed on the screen, we feverishly sent text messages back and forth to each other noting our relief that we would have been caught driving in the rain had we not decided to leave the night before.

In the wake of the storms, the overwhelming devastation and loss facing Middle Tennessee is hard to grasp.  I am transfixed by any tidbit of information that gets passed along and yet remain unsure if I have the emotional strength to handle it all.  I drove around downtown and West Nashville yesterday evening and the scenes I saw were surreal and heartbreaking.  This is my city.  Things like this shouldn’t happen here.  And yet, they did.  While there are plenty of people who were fortunate enough not to be directly affected by the flooding (myself included), you would be hard pressed to find anyone around town who doesn’t know a few people in their lives that were.  The way the people of Nashville have responded speaks volumes to our ability to be resilient in the face of adversity.  Hmmm, where have I heard that phrase before?  How many times a season has Coach Trotz called the Predators resilient?  The team not only loves playing in this city, but they fully embody the spirit of Nashville; something I have been saying for years.  Section 303’s Patten Fuqua summed up the city (and I think, the team) quite nicely when he said, “A large portion of why we were being ignored was that we weren’t doing anything to draw attention to ourselves. We were handling it on our own.”.


If you live in the Nashville area and would like to volunteer, please visit Hands On Nashville.  They have immediate needs for a variety of volunteer opportunities and the list will continue to grow as the water recedes.  If you can’t volunteer but would like to help in other ways, you can text REDCROSS to 90999 from your cell phone and $10 will be donated to the Red Cross disaster relief efforts around Middle Tennessee.  You can also donate directly to the Middle Tennessee Red Cross chapter here.  The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee (CMFT) is probably the best organization to donate to if you want your dollars to go directly to the flood victims of Nashville and the surrounding areas.  You can donate online here.  Please consider how best you can help out in the face of such loss. 

We are all Nashville.  As a born-and-raised Nashvillian, I am proud to say I am Nashville too.