The first two games of the season weren't terribly reassuring when it comes to the Predators rocky relationship with the penalty box.
It was a trip of a lifetime for the Nashville Predators - an exhibition game in Bern, Switzerland in front of Roman Josi's hometown crowd and two wins in Prague over the San Jose Sharks at the NHL Global Series. The on ice success was nearly as positive as the off ice experience for Nashville's roster.
Coming away with four points and incredible memories is a valuable takeaway for the Predators, but the two games reawakened concerns over an issue that plagued the Preds all last season. Can the Nashville Predators clean up the senseless penalties?
Last season the Predators led the league in penalties by a significant margin. Nashville raked in 358 penalties and served 1,035 minutes in the box last season. Two of the top three most penalized players last season wore Predators jerseys - Mark Borowiecki and Tanner Jeannot. Granted, the disputatious duo collected a significant portion of their penalty box penance due to fighting (they led the league in fighting majors), but setting fisticuffs aside, there is no doubt Nashville had a penalty problem.
The sin bin situation can be partially attributed to the physical style of play the Predators commit to. John Hynes espouses a "hard to play against" identity, which at game speed and intensity can sometimes slide into overzealous physicality. Hynes acknowledged the correlation between a highly physical game plan and time in the penalty box, but he also conceded that penalties were an issue that hurt the Predators last season.
Nashville's penalty kill last season ranked eighteenth in the league with a 79.2% success rate. It isn't just the risk of an opponent scoring a power play goal that cost the Predators. With a man serving time, the consequences go beyond a better scoring opportunity for the opposing team. Of course, the four man unit expends extra energy on a kill, but it also keeps some of Nashville's best players and lines on the sidelines. Last season, the two top scorers - Duchene and Forsberg - sat on the bench during penalty kills while linemate Mikael Granlund was on the ice killing penalties.
It was evident in the two games against San Jose this weekend that killing a penalty doesn't mean the effects of the infraction end after 120 seconds. While Nashville was able to kill seven of eight penalties in the first games of the season, they sacrificed momentum for several minutes beyond the opening of the penalty box door. Certainly a strong, effective penalty kill can create momentum, but more often than not the momentum stays with the team with the power play chance. That is what Nashville faced against the Sharks. When San Jose generated offensive chances on the man advantage, they carried the momentum of the game for four or five minutes past the penalty regardless of how successful they were on the power play.
There are, of course, a handful of times in a game when taking a penalty is the wisest course of action, for instance interrupting a high danger scoring chance. But the penalties the Predators tended to commit last season and in the games in Prague were of the more undisciplined variety. Of the eight penalties Nashville committed in the two games, a majority could be credited to overzealous or undisciplined play. Those eight penalties were committed by eight different players, so it isn't just one or two players who aren't dialed in. It is a side effect of the style of play the team executes.
This could be chalked up to shaking off the early season rust and dust of a new season if the Predators didn't have such an alarming track record from last season with the exact same problem. Accepting a degree of calls against is understandable with the more physical style of play, but last season's special teams lessons should serve as a warning for Nashville - they can't repeat the infractions and expect a better outcome in 2022-2023.
Two games is a small sample size, so with a commitment from the coaching staff to focus on discipline and another season of Predators identity hockey under their belt, this could be a situation that improves with a combination of the two. One thing is for sure - Nashville can't ignore the price they'll pay for committing penalties this season.