Preds Crap the Bed; Lose to Phoenix 5-2

Cool. So, nothing says "Hey, let's show our fans what we built upon last season" like getting destroyed early and going down 4-0 in the home opener.

I mean I feel like we salvaged some respect, scoring twice after that, but really? How flat do you have to be to come out and get massacred in your home opener?

Was it just a bad game? Maybe. I'm not sure anymore. No Neck has tricked us into thinking our teams are better than they are over the years by doing all kinds of shady shit like making the playoffs and getting our hopes up, but this year it feels slightly different.

Don't get me wrong, we've got some talent. Problem is that talent lies almost exclusively on defense or between the pipes. For the forwards, different story. I honestly believe that (not an exaggeration) this is the least talented team, offensively, that we've put on the ice in at least six or seven years, at least with Erat, Fisher, and Hornqvist out.

I'm not being overly negative; I think we will sneak into the playoffs again this season.....but let's be real.......this offense sucks. I don't remember us putting a team of forwards on the ice that was so average and/or so recently out of Milwaukee at any point after we started shedding expansion status. It's a little disturbing.

Every sport is the same way as far as over-reacting to a single win or loss, but falling behind by four at home to a pretty average team who hadn't won yet, in your home opener, is no less than inexcusable.

Phoenix looked so much better than us that it made me want to drive my skull through my TV. We scored a couple goals on slapshots and had a few other chances, but you're insane if you thought we matched their intensity.

I sure ****ing hope Trotz gives the boys some shit in practice and we come out ready to dominate against New Jersey on Saturday. We're so used to the Preds being a resilient team that bounces back after a poor effort. Let's hope for the same this weekend. After all, whatever the case, we're still 2-1 right now.

P.S. Kiss it Legwand haters!!!!

Getting to Know: The Phoenix Coyotes

So far, so good for the Preds after taking their first two contests away from home in Columbus and St. Louis. Now, the much anticipated home opener sees the Phoenix Coyotes (0-1-1) come to Bridgestone Arena hoping to pull out their first win of the young season after losses to division foes San Jose and Dallas. So what's the deal with these Coyotes anyway? A little short on knowledge of the team out in the desert? No worries. We've got you covered with all the important facts.

Origin: In December of 1995, Jerry Colangelo, owner of the NBA's Phoenix Suns and now MLB's Arizona Diamondbacks decided to pursue the idea of bringing the NHL to Arizona. Next thing everyone knew, the original Winnipeg Jets moved to Phoenix after the 1995-1996 season, thus becoming the "Coyotes" after a local name-the-team contest. Not a bad name, although their original logo sure was.

City: I'm going to try to be negative here. I personally really like the state of Arizona and the Phoenix area as a whole. The city of Phoenix is the sixth-largest city by population in the U.S. and is the only state capital in the country with over a million residents. The city is the heart of the "Valley of the Sun" and is home to the aforementioned Diamondbacks and Suns. Also, (fun fact forthcoming) the city has the unfortunate title of the "Kidnapping Capital of the U.S.", due to its immigrant smuggling and drug trafficking problems prevalent in the area.

That's Phoenix though. The Coyotes actually play in suburban Glendale, a city of just over 200,000 which is not exactly the Metro area's center of population (but we'll get to that later), which is best-known for hosting Super Bowls at the home of the Arizona Cardinals, who play right next door to the Coyotes in Glendale in the middle of a huge shopping center. Fun, right? Hey it's not bad but I prefer Broadway personally.

Famous People:  Well, this is a tricky one because of the large number of transplants that relocate to the area from really crappy and/or cold parts of the country in search of better weather, mountains, and outdoor sports. HOWEVER, there are some famous people who are actually from Phoenix (and Glendale), as as a large city there are a lot to choose from, specifically athletes. Aside from athletes, Jordin Sparks of American Idol fame, as well as the only person I've ever seen to spell Jordin like Jordin Tootoo, is from Glendale specifically. Speaking of music, Chester Beddington, lead singer of Linkin Park hails from Phoenix, as does (not speaking of music) first female Supreme Court member Sandra Day O'Connor. What a duo. The political families the Goldwaters and McCains also call Phoenix home. Last but not least, rising actress Emma Stone is from Phoenix. Nice.

Team: Aside from their success during their early years in Phoenix, the 'Yotes were a side-note to their coach, Wayne Gretzky, but after years of futility, he was canned as coach and Dave Tippett took the reigns just before the 09-10 season, and has led them to two straight playoff appearances, although losing to Detroit twice. The team is led by captain Shane Doan, who has been with the club since its Winnipeg days. The Coyotes also enjoy a disturbing amount of success against the Preds. It's not a good thing. New year, new trends. Watch out 'Yotes, we're comin' for ya.

Fans: Well, the struggles with Phoenix's attendance are often-documented, but there's two sides to each story. Is Phoenix a true hockey town? No it's not, and that's fine, but if the new arena the team plays in was closer to downtown Phoenix it may help to boost the attendance, but obviously that won't be happening. After failing miserably in an effort to buy our Preds and move them to Canada, Blackberry founder Jim Balsillie again failed in an attempt to move the Coyotes as well. The Thrashers recent departure to Winnipeg (ironic) seems to have saved the team's future for the meantime, although the city of Glendale has the final say on that. Although the team does have passionate fans, it does remain a largely quiet arena during most games, with many fans disguised as empty seats while averaging just over 12,000 a game. Ahead of only the Islanders. Oh well.

All in all, despite my relative positivity regarding the Coyotes and Phoenix, the bottom line is we should expect the Preds to remain undefeated and hand the Desert Dogs their third straight loss to start the season. Smashville will be hoppin' and ready to go. Go Preds, and behold the gold.

Craig Freaking Smith

Don't mess with Craig Smith

Quick thought here because I can't really help myself.

Not that I really knew what to expect when Craig Smith was apparently blowing away coaches and staff in training camp and the preseason, but it looks possible that they knew what they were getting themselves into.

Craig Freaking Smith has netted two goals in his first two games. First professional games, ever. No weak sauce minor leagues, just straight outta the other U-Dub (Washington is the real U-Dub) and onto the Preds roster. For those not in the know, I'm talking about the University of Wisconsin.

Anyways, not only are they goals for the probably offensively-challenged Preds, they're goals which came in front of the net, a staple of successful Preds teams through the years. With the departure of Joel Ward, it was extra sweet to see someone fresh come in and capitalize on a couple garbage goals.

Friday night the Preds continued the "rivalry" with the Blue Jackets by ruining their home/season opener by winning 3-2, Smith netting the second goal, and Saturday night the Preds proved their apathy towards the Blues' home opener as well by collecting their second straight road win 4-2 to open up with a perfect weekend away from the 615, returning for a Thursday home opener with Los Coyotes de Phoenix.

Also, side note : Five of the team's seven goals have come from American players. That's why we called this blog Pred White and Blue. Foreshadowing perhaps? You know it.

USA bitches.

Getting to Know the St. Louis Blues

One down, one more team to go this weekend. The Preds will leave Columbus in their dust and take their talents to St. Louis. But as we like to do (I know this is only the second time, but you'll see we really like to do it), let's take a look at our friends to the west and see what's going on in their neck of the woods. Sorry we didn't have a bunch of posts later in the week everyone. Work really sucks when it interferes with fun doesn't it?

Name:

The St. Louis "Blues" were named for the famous W.C. Handy song of the same name. The song was made because St. Louis really sucks and gives you the blues. I mean why else would W.C Handy say that? It's a bunch of farms and then an arch. Seriously! There's NOTHING out that way. Have you ever driven west of Tennessee? Yeah neither have I, there's a reason for it. All my friends that have had to drive that way always complain about how boring it is. W.C. Handy was made famous when his band moved to Memphis and started playing Beale Street.. So congrats St. Louis, your name was adopted from a song by a famous Tennessean. Nashville 1 - St. Louis 0. Just another reason why we own you. 

Origin:

St. Louis was part of the first expansion in the NHL and owns it's total existence to Chicago and the Wirtz family. The only reason the team was founded in the first place was because the Wirtzes owned the arena in St. Louis as well. Although they were the owners in Chicago, they wanted to put some use to that property they had in St. Louis, so we got the Blues. And Baltimore's still pissed! That's right everyone, we could have had hockey in Baltimore if it weren't for those stupid Hawks (just wait for that one... I hate the Hawks). So what can we learn from this? If your hockey team is founded on the fact that you're a little brother, you're probably screwed. Nashville 2 - St. Louis 0. There's no other city like Nashville on the planet. 

City: 

So the actual population of St. Louis is 319,294, but they pull one of those shitty things where they count their "whole metropolitan area" so they can inflate their numbers. So on a technicality, their population is 2,845,298. Many large corporations actually call St. Louis home... Really?! There wasn't any other place to go? One of these is Energizer, so the Blues can keep going and going and going and going without ever once winning the Stanley Cup. Oops sorry St. Louis. Is that a sore subject? As you can see from the picture below the only cool thing about St. Louis is the Arch. But seriously, if the most redeeming quality about your city is an arch, wow. Look to the left, see I told you... NOTHING. The best part of Missouri is the part that have the signs that say "Welcome to Tennessee" Nashville 3 - St. Louis 0. 

Famous People:

They're stacked here. Actually this is the only category that they can actually compete with Nashville. I mean, Bob Costas, Chuck Berry, Miles Davis, Mark Twain, and Nelly just to name a few. I mean Nelly dropped some "country grammar" on us and let us know that everyone in St. Louis thinks it's hot in herrrre. But they have an ace-in-the-hole with their most famous person, Scott Bakula. We all know and love him as Paul Blake in Necessary Roughness (if you haven't seen it check it out. It's an underrated movie). Here's a picture of him with Sinbad... Enjoy! You guessed it, I'll give this one a draw. They have some famous people in their arsenal. 

Hockey Team:

So they've made their playoffs once over the past six seasons. Yeah, enough said. Their best player may be their goalie Jaroslav Halak. I don't think I've ever been to a Preds game where we pronounce his name right when we tell him he sucks though. Their other "shining star" is David Backes who had 31 goals and 31 assists last year. I'm not going to spend a lot of time telling you about their hockey team though... They're really shitty. Nashville 4 - St. Louis 0

Fans:

There's no good fan videos or music video parodies. But we don't have music video/songs either. Why don't we? Come on Nashville, let's make some songs about our team! We're all talented. Oh well I'm giving us this one too because we just care more than their fans do. 

Final score 5-0 Nashville. Look for the Preds to go to 2-0 tonight. Go Preds! 

VICTORY!!!!!! Preds win 3-2!

The Preds start off their season with a W. Doesn't always matter how you get there, just matters that you got it and you have the points.

The biggest story before the game was Pekka Rinne and his first game against the flu. Do the Preds' not give out flu shots for free like a lot of the Downtown Nashville businesses do? Did the Preds' not know it was Downtown Nashville Employees Appreciation week this week? Where were the Preds' in the tug-o-war competition? Pekka probably didn't get the shot because he stops all shots from getting past him. (Bad Joke I couldn't help it)

It's true though, Pekka had 32 saves and looked like a brick wall out there. Queue "Unbelievable" by EMF.

On the offensive side of things, how about Craig Smith?! The Badger got his first regular season goal in his first regular season game by capitalizing off a Shea Weber slapshot that was deflected. Fun fact of the day: Did you know Badgers can run as fast as 19 mph?! Neither did I... I'm glad I looked it up. I'm really looking forward to see what Smith is going to do this year. If last night was any indication, we're going to be hearing this rook's name a lot.

The other fun fact of the day: Shea Weber's slapshot was so hard that it knocked the mask off of Steve Mason. So let it be known that Shea can destroy nets, break ankles, and knock off masks with a single shot. I'm waiting for the day that his slapshot will break the glass behind the goal.

SUTER SCORED A GOAL ON A POWERPLAY!!! Talk about the love for the U-Dubs we have on Nashville. We may have to get Bucky the Badger to come down and be a guest mascot with Gnash.

The winning goal was scored by Matt Halischuk off a pass from Cal O, O, O, O'Reilly.

The first one's always the hardest... The Preds' played tough and got the win on the road. What a great night! 

Final 25 Man Roster Set: Discuss

So here we are, two long days before the Preds open the season up in Ohio somewhere, and per-NHL policy teams have to narrow their final roster to 25.

Plenty of spaces were opened up after the front-office-orchestrated mass exodus of many of our key players in July, but not to be worried. The Preds finished off the preseason with a 7-1 record and quite frankly looked like a team on a mission to prove that they aren't a fluke from last season's second round appearance.

In case you haven't seen yet, the roster consists of 15 forwards, 8 defensemen (it IS Nashville after all), and the two goaltenders.


Forwards: Niclas Bergfors, Martin Erat, Mike Fisher, Blake Geoffrion, Matt Halischuk, Patric Hornqvist, Sergei Kostitsyn, David Legwand, Cal O'Reilly, Craig Smith, Jerred Smithson, Nick Spaling, Zack Stortini, Jordin Tootoo, and Colin Wilson.

In other words, who the hell is gonna score goals? Don't get me wrong, that question isn't code for "we're going to suck this year" but it's a legitimate concern.

We all know that the Preds play tough, smart two-way hockey and there's nothing wrong with that. Last year's Cup champion Bruins can attest to that; but one can't be blamed for wondering if the lack of offensive punch will be the team's ultimate achilles heel for yet another season.

This group of forwards is loaded with young guys who are either looking to continue improving from last season or guys who are looking to break in with the club any way they can.

Craig Smith is getting more than a few looks so far and with good reason. In his first season as a pro after coming out of the University of Wisconsin (shock!) has impressed everyone and made the team easily. I'm assuming. Niclas Bergfors is looking to be the next in the long line of 'young players who kinda sucked' (excuse me, 'didn't reach their potential') elsewhere and improved under the Tutelage of Trotz.

The other corps of young guys like Geoffrion, Wilson, Kostitsyn and so on and so forth are looking to establish themselves as solid players in the league while Legwand, Fisher, and Erat are the veteran offensive threats. If you want to be liberal with the words "offensive threats" that is.

Fisher will be beginning the year on injured reserve with a shoulder injury which is scientifically proven to be taking entirely too long to heal from summer surgery.

Defensemen:  Teemu Laakso, Jonathon Blum, Francis Bouillon, Mattias Ekholm, Jack Hillen, Kevin Klein, Ryan Suter, Shea Weber

Thoughts on Weber and Suter: League's best tandem. Thoughts on the rest: Should remain solid as a whole, which is the Nashville way, but there are a few question marks.

Blum looked very solid for the most part in his play last season after being called up in January and looks to progress further in his first full season.

Mattias Ekholm is going to be fun to watch. At 21, he's 6'4", 204 pounds and has a solid mix of skill and physicality. There were concerns that he would have trouble adapting to the North American game but clearly it didn't hamper him too much as he made the opening night roster.

Klein sucks.

Jack Hillen was added mainly as a depth signing. He came over from the Islanders and is probably best known for once taking an Alex Ovechkin slap shot to the face. I'd normally post that link but it's a tad awkward so you can find it on some site called Youtube if you really wanna see it.

I don't know much about Laakso, although many Pred fans do. So shoot me.

Like Fisher, Bouillon will be starting the season where he ended last season, on IR, with post-concussion syndrome. He did however begin practicing with the team on Monday.

Goaltenders: Pekka Rinne, Anders Lindback

The tallest goalie tandem in NHL history (we think) returns yet again, and Rinne looks to be a beast this season even more so than last. If you would consider playing in a contract year, allowing barely a goal per game in the preseason, and last year's third runner-up in MVP voting to boot, as a beast.

He's awesome.

Lindback is a good guy to have as a backup, but hopefully we won't see a ton of him.

This article has been way too long, and if you've read the whole thing, I must ask you why.

Dust in the Wind/It's so Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday

If you all get a free minute today, make sure to go say goodbye to Four Habs Fans. They've decided to call it quits after four years and we'll miss them.

Although we think they should have picked a better team to write about, we laughed at their posts over the years. They created their blog for some of the same reasons we created ours... They wanted to make an honest, funny blog and that's what we're all about. Their blog also happened to focus on the Habs' "suckitude (at the time)" as they said, but luckily we're not worrying about that in Nashville.

So raise your glasses, pour one out for the homies, and visit the guys to say your goodbyes. Because we all know the Habs fans have a long road ahead of them.