Nashville Predators 2014-15 Season Preview

Nashville Predators vs Tampa Bay Lightning

The Nashville Predators will begin a new era Friday, as they have their first On-Ice session of the season.

Head Coach Peter Laviolette becomes only the second coach in franchise history after the letting go of long time head coach, Barry Trotz. Trotz was fired after fifteen seasons with the team. Laviolette said he is excited about implementing a new system in Nashville, but he recognizes that it is going to take time.

That will be made a little bit easier for the team with the offseason acquisitions of James Neal and Mike Ribeiro, who played together in Dallas from 2008-2011.

Derek Roy comes to the team from St. Louis. A ten year veteran of the league, he averages 34 assist a season and has shown that he is a good goal scorer in years past, but has lacked in that department the past 2 seasons.

They also acquired 15 year veteran Olli Jokinen, and 12 year veteran defenseman Anton Volchenkov.

The team will also return great players for another year in Nashville.

Captain Shea Weber, who is a three time James Norris Trophy finalist. Weber is coming off a 23 goal season and a gold medal with Team Canada in the Olympics.

Pekka Rinne a two time Vezina Trophy finalist will be returning to the team after missing the majority of it last year due to a hip infection, an arthroscopy and rehabilitation. Many experts say that with Rinne the predators would have been a playoff team. Many of their losses were by 1 or 2 goals. Rinne has been quoted saying that his is ready to play this year and is near 100 percent.

The division the Predators play in is very tough. The central division had 5 of the 8 playoff teams from the Western Conference.  Those teams: The Chicago Blackhawks, Colorado Avalanche, St. Louis Blues, and the Dallas Stars, will all be tough again.

With all that being said, if we can learn the Laviolette system early, the new scoring talent performs the way they should, and Pekka Rinne stays healthy. We could see playoff hockey in Nashville when April rolls around.