Nashville Predators Power Rankings – Jan. 5, 2010
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…
Sorry I’m a little bit late with these this week; I traveled back into the country, got sick, and then hit the road for DC yesterday to try to avoid the snow that didn’t happen.
This week’s rankings have the Preds dropping slightly, after a week that saw them lose red-hot Martin Erat to injury, but also saw them rebound from a 3-game skid with a 3-game streak. The comments that go along with this week’s rankings cover a broad swath of topics (including ESPN’s inability to resist snubbing Ryan Suter’s selection by Team USA to play in the upcoming 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, BC – making him the third man in his family to do so – make sure you read Puck Daddy’s great interview with Suter). Personally, I’m a big fan of Alan Muir’s plea to David Poile (which makes me wonder what article Tom Callahan of the Preds broadcast team was reading or why Buddy Oakes of PredsOnTheGlass.com thinks Kovie would be a bad fit in Nashville).
Remember that TSN factors key injuries into their weekly rankings, so the 14 they gave our boys is an anomaly again this week. Nevertheless, I postulated last time that maybe the Preds were forcing the international hockey media to talk about their on-ice product instead of their off-ice woes; it appears as though I might have been right. So without further ado, here are the NHL standings as of 4:30pm EST on Thursday, Jan. 7, 2010 (remember: you can click each of these photos and open the original links):
The Nashville Predators sit (un)comfortably in the 7th spot in the Western Conference headed into tonight's action against the Carolina Hurricanes
From ESPN:
From TSN:
From Rogers Sports Net:
From The Hockey News:
From CNN/Sports Illustrated:
From SB Nation:
So there you have it, Preds fans. It’ll be interesting to see how our guys rebound from a dropping a disappointing 3-1 decision to the Calgary Flames the other night. Until next week…GO PREDS!
