Nashville doesn't have the makeup to contain a dominating forward like Vancouver's Ryan Kesler.
NASHVILLE -- This is a battle that Nashville can't win.
If a 41-goal scorer and Selke Trophy candidate is going to yank on the cape night after night and say -- with his play -- to the other 19 guys on his team, "Jump on boys, I'm taking us there," Nashville is screwed.
Because when the Predators look down their bench, they see leading scorers who don't grow bigger when playoff hockey arrives.
Guys like little Martin Erat, who was so worried about getting hit at one point that he forgot to touch an iced puck. Or Sergei Kostitsyn, who is so pointless in this series -- in every sense of the word -- you'd need a Navy Seal to locate him these past four games.
The Predators need a Ryan Kesler to step up and be a hero. But the truth is they don't have a forward of that pedigree. They just don't.
"We're a 20-guys-a-night team," said Shea Weber. "We don't have a superstar in here who's going to score us 50 goals. We need to find a way as a team to win games.
"We need a team effort. We need to play together as a team."
The problem is that Vancouver plays mighty well as a team too. But every now and again, a forward pops up and has the kind of offensive game that Kesler had in Game 4 or Alex Burrows had in Game 7 versus Chicago.
As the singers say over on the Nashville strip, "Can I get a 'Hell Ya!' for Kesler?
"Kes is our go-to guy, and everybody knows that," Burrows said. "It's not only on the score sheet; it's both ends of the ice. He gets in on the forecheck, and he's the first one back. He battles all over the ice, he finishes every check, he's huge in the face-off circle and when we've needed big goals, he's always been there for us.
"So he's our leader. We need him to keep playing that way."
"Their top players have been better than ours, no questions about that," Hornqvist said. "Our top players have to step up now for the next three games."
Nashville coach Barry Trotz, renowned for making the playoffs every year with a roster full of "never-heard-of-hims," must salivate when he looks at the upper-echelon talent that Alain Vigneault has at his disposal.
Trotz's go-to offensive players are small Europeans who get seem to pushed to the perimeter at this time of year. Kesler's blood-'n'-guts game is such that, as the hockey gets tougher, he becomes more of a factor, not less.
These games are his wheelhouse.
"He's getting some room, he's winning more battles, and he's finding the net for them," acknowledged Trotz. "He's their best player - bar none. He's the guy who's their best player right now."
"It's nice to contribute," a humble Kesler said, "but I keep saying: I put the same game on the ice every night."
There are no trades in May, of course. And even if there were, the Predators couldn't afford to do anything other than take on projects like Kostitsyn, then draft and develop nearly everyone else on their roster.
So if they're going to climb back into this series, it will happen the Nashville way.
"Well, you know the way we do it here is collectively. As a group," said Joel Ward, a great looking, 30-year-old taken off the scrap heap in Minnesota who now leads the Predators in playoff scoring.
"Yeah, sure, everybody would like to go out there and score a hat trick. But its different each night - guys seem to step up."
"I've seen it all year," said Trotz, who all but put on a robe and pounded on the pulpit after Game 4. "We were on death's doorstep a couple of times against Anaheim, came back and found a way to win. In Vancouver we were there too. We found ways.
"We dug ourselves a hole, but we've been in a few holes this year. I have history with this group. It's a special group. We've got a lot of resiliency, a lot of backbone.
"We're going to have to have a lot of resiliency and backbone in Vancouver."
And don't forget some production, Barry. That would help too.
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