It isn't just on ice skills that head coach John Hynes is gauging in the Nashville Predators preseason.
When John Hynes became the head coach of the Nashville Predators in January 2020, he identified mental mistakes as one of the issues the team struggled with that eventually led to the drastic midseason coaching change. Since taking over the reins, Hynes has made it clear that mental toughness is as important to this team's success as physical toughness on the ice.
"Identity" is more than a buzz word for the Predators and their coaching staff. The team focuses on a very specific identity or style of hockey - being a team that is hard to play against. Most often when that phrase "hard to play against" is used, the typical hockey translation means being a team that aggressively forechecks, plays a physical game, competes hard in puck battles, and wins the net front skirmishes. Hynes certainly emphasizes the importance of those attributes, but he equally emphasizes the importance of mental toughness as a critical aspect of Predators hockey.
Hynes and the coaching staff don't wait for the regular season and contests against opposing teams to gauge Nashville's mental toughness.
"One of the things we talked with the group about was that that [mental toughness] is a part of training camp - that we want to be mentally and physically tough," Hynes explained. "You need to have it in this league to be able to win."
Training camp is carefully structured to gauge the players' mental strength as well as their physical on-ice skills. The specific drills, the increasing physical demands, and the high intensity of on-ice work give Hynes a glimpse of how players manage the mental test of the sport's high stress environment.
"We've had very challenging practices," Hynes said. "There's a lot of conditioning involved, a lot of battle drills, second pucks, and things where they can't just stop. They have to keep going even when they might want to or their body is telling them to stop. We try to implement that in camp and see who has it and what situations guys push through and which situations they don't."
The opportunities to reveal a player's mental toughness have been plentiful in training camp. Each day, two of the player groups engaged in a fast paced, physical, high intensity scrimmage. Hynes wasn't just looking to see who scored goals and how players showcased their skills. These intersquad competitions helped the coaching staff gauge mental resiliency.
"When we get into the scrimmages, we want to see how guys play," Hynes shared. "The other day the gold team was down, and they wound up being able to score late, come from behind, and find a way to win."
The importance of being mentally resilient in game situations is a message that younger players are embracing. When asked how he incorporated mental toughness in his game on and off the ice, 21 year old Finnish prospect Juuso Pärssinen shared a similar example.
"If you are losing or you're up 5-0, it doesn't matter. Always give your heart out. If you have a hard workout and your fatigue comes and you are tired, you still got to push."
As Coach Hynes is evaluating individual players' mental strength in the high stress environment of training camp, the benefits for the team collectively may come further down the line.
"The NHL is a long season," defenseman Alexandre Carrier shared. "The schedule is really hard so it's mentally challenging. You've got to push through, and if everyone is pushing in the same direction, you're less tired."