Nashville Predators Power Rankings – Dec. 22, 2009
NHL power rankings don’t amount to a bucket of pucks when it comes to whether or not the Nashville Predators make the playoffs, or whether they’ll ever get to hoist the Stanley Cup. Simply reading power rankings sends fans of all 30 NHL stripes reeling every week (yours truly included), furious that their team isn’t ranked higher. But despite rising blood pressure, I can’t help but read these dart-prophesied rankings on a week-to-week basis…
The good guys seem to have answered the expectations bell this week, getting scoring from unexpected places, and now find themselves atop the Western Conference standings headed into tonight’s action against the Vancouver Canucks. Not surprisingly, the Boys for Whom We Make Noise have surged in the hockey world’s various power rankings, getting inside the top 10 for the first time this season.
This week’s outlier is TSN, which factors in player injuries/illnesses when calculating (?) power rankings, and with Jason Arnott missing a trio of games due to a mysterious “upper body injury,” our Fanged Friends still sit in the low teens.
Nonetheless, here’s an interesting observation: when national/international media cover the Preds, they usually do so in pack journalism style – each outlet picking up the scent of one little snippet and everyone harping on it until the team is just mutilated. However, if you look at the comments associated with each of this week’s rankings, each one praises a different player or aspect of the team – could this mean that the Preds (as a team) are once again being recognized on the North American stage for some legitimate hockey heft? Only time will tell…but I can say with absolute certainty that, from my Center Ice apartment sofa seat, this Predators team today is a very different team than the 20 who took the ice in early October 2009.
If you didn’t pick up on it last week, you can click the images below and that should open the original site’s power rankings page in a new window:
NHL Western Conference standings, as of the end of Monday’s games, December 21, 2009:
The Nashville Predators firmly hold the #4 spot with a game in hand over the LA Kings
From ESPN:
From TSN:
From Rogers Sports Net:
From The Hockey News:
From CNN/Sports Illustrated (new!):
So there you have it, Fans of the Fang – I will be leaving town on Christmas day for a cruise with my girlfriend, and will not have Internet access until we return on January 2nd – so we’ll have to skip next week’s power rankings. Make sure to cheer LOUDLY and PROUDLY for us while we’re away – Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all if I don’t hear from you beforehand or see you on Twitter! (@stackiii)
