Nashville Predators' undying task is turn the extraordinary into their ordinary | Estes

This would be a lot easier for the Nashville Predators if they’d just give in and accept what’s already understood about this season’s team. About what it is and, more so, what is it not.

It is not built to be a viable contender for the Stanley Cup.

No one seemingly believes that it is, either, from the rest of the NHL to the Predators‘ revamped front office to their embattled coaching staff to their locker room of 30-somethings and unfamiliar newbies still learning one another. Hockey’s top teams don’t look like this team. For these Predators to do something this season, everyone agrees, would require something truly special.

Special, nonetheless, is what’s being demanded. Overachievement has become a daily expectation, which makes for a difficult existence. But that’s the Predators’ new existence under a first-year general manager. Chris MacFarland looms as a wildcard in Smashville. He’s liable to do anything – roster-wise, coaching-wise or wherever else – as soon as performance dips on the ice.

So the Predators’ objective? Never ease up.

Every game a referendum. Every opponent as a Super Bowl. It’ll be exhausting, honestly.

“It’s going to be like that all year, I think, (with) the sense of urgency,” Predators coach Andrew Brunette said. “We are what we are. We’re not perfect. It’s not going to be easy. I think we’ve accepted that challenge to start.”

What MacFarland is doing to open his tenure here, it’s actually kind of brilliant. Before this season, he was understandably measured in his expectations, telling The Tennessean that these Predators “are going to have to outwork teams and do that time and time again to have a chance to win.”

Then, in the same interview, MacFarland said that’s exactly what he wished to see – or else:

“How the scoreboard is going to read in the month of October is going to be very, very important to the direction of this season and future seasons,” said MacFarland, raising the possibility of major change if the Predators again stumbled out of the gate under Brunette.

So far, they haven’t stumbled. They aren’t soaring, either. As October nears an end, the Predators are back where they’ve so often been this decade: In the middle of the pack in the Western Conference, positioned to challenge for one of those two wildcard spots.

Out of 12 games, they’ve only lost three in regulation. That’s good. But they’ve only won four, which is not so good. Their five overtime losses leads the NHL.

The same Predators who “forgot to play hockey” (Brunette’s words) in a dreary 6-0 loss in Boston turned around three days later and outplayed the mighty Colorado Avalanche for a 6-2 victory. Was it just a coincidence that the Avs are MacFarland’s old franchise? Probably not.

After a 4-3 shootout defeat to the New York Islanders at Bridgestone on Oct. 27, the website Moneypuck gave the Predators a respectable 31.2% chance to make the playoffs.

But their odds of winning the division? Those were more like 0.7%.

“We’re hanging around, I guess, is the best way to say it for now,” MacFarland said during an appearance on 102.5-FM’s “DMase, Vingan & Daunic” prior to the Islanders game. MacFarland acknowledged “some good nights.” He also said, appropriately, that “we’ve been inconsistent.”

“That’s the part you’ve got to see,” he added. “You’ve got to see consistency.”

MacFarland’s stated aim, initially, was for these Predators to surpass expectations (including his own). And here’s the thing: There’s no finish line to that. It’s not like he’ll ease up on that goal just because October went OK.

If anything, that’ll only heighten the ambition. There will never be a point where these Preds can relax and believe they’ve done enough to satisfy the new boss.

That’s the brilliant part. MacFarland has figured out how to keep his Predators on edge all season.

It’s not to be unreasonable or mean. It’s because he believes the only chance this team has is by turning extraordinary effort into the ordinary.

“That’s what I think we have to do,” MacFarland told 102.5-FM. “I don’t think we’re going to explode by teams five-on-five. I don’t think we’re that type of team right now. I think we’re going to need good goaltending and continue to get good special teams and, then, find a way to get a point here and two points there and not have any extended losing streaks.”

This Predators season, so long as it is worth watching, will be watching them push a boulder up a mountain. Gaining or losing a few steps each day. Understanding that the peak is likely unattainable.

That’ll be OK, though. The struggle is the goal. They want to keep doing it for as long as they can.

Reach Tennessean sports columnist Gentry Estes at gestes@tennessean.com and hang out with him on Bluesky @gentryestes.bsky.social

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Nashville Predators’ undying task is turn the extraordinary into their ordinary | Estes