Off Wing on the Preds

You can go here to listen to the latest Off Wing Opinion Podcast, who gave a couple of minutes to our Preds this time. It's nice to see observers of the league give the guys a bit of the credit they deserve. They recorded this after we'd swept two from the Red Wings, so they had a high opinion of us. Hopefully the few days we've had off will get us back on track after back-to-back losses.

Eric McErlain makes the following points. He agrees with me that the true strength of this team is the front office. I knew from the start that landing David Poile was a great move, and agree that the consistency of only having one head coach has been important. Poile has put together a team that reminds him of old Washington Capitols he used to watch, Poile's previous team.

He notes that the Kariya signing was a huge emotional lift for the city. I know people who were joking that the Preds were a dead team during the lock-out. On the day of the signing, they were trying to figure out how to buy tickets, even season tickets. All local sports radio stations stopped their scheduled broadcasts to get anyone they could on the air, whether it be Kariya, Trotz, Poile, the owner Leipold, or Greg Johnson, one of the instigators of the deal. All showed their class by being very open to interviews, as they usually are. The money in the contract for Kariya was earned on the very first day.

Eric says Tomas Vokoun is a goalie that is a difference maker, and that's an understatement. He knows Vokoun can steal a game or two. He also says that we keep the shots down for Vokoun, which is my only point of contention in the podcast. In many of our games we have been outshot, sometimes badly, but with Vokoun in net we find a way to win those anyway. In fact, look here to see that we are in the bottom five on shots allowed, and in the bottom ten on shots taken. I don't think that will surprise any of the local fans of the team.

He thinks we have no weaknesses, and he's pretty close to being right. But I think if Vokoun goes down, we may be in trouble. We could lose anyone else, be it Sullivan or Kariya or whomever, and we're still in the hunt for first place in the Western Conference. If we lose Tomas, we're a six or seven seed, at best.

Eric's partner Joe closes by saying we are a lot of fun to watch, and that it's scary/great that we are such a young team and should be a real force in the West for years to come. Hopefully we can have five good years of hockey to make up for the first five years of the club! With the guys we have in Milwaukee, I think we might be in luck. It's fun to cheer for such a classy and smart organization.

My big question remains; how will we compete in the playoffs? Do we have the toughness to win four out of seven games against some of the better teams in the league? I'm not sure, but I can't wait to find out.

Sorry I didn't get to this sooner, Eric, as I was sick. Keep up the good work!