NASHVILLE — By now, we should know what wins for whom.
Through six games between the same two teams, we should be able to say, “If Nashville can smooth out their zone exits, that is their key to winning.” Or, “If Winnipeg can pour through the neutral zone with speed, the Predators are done.”
Except there is one problem. Nashville head coach Peter Laviolette isn’t even sure his team’s best game didn’t end in a loss.
“Is there one game from this series you would like your team to duplicate in Game 7?” he was asked.
“I think things went pretty well for us in Game 1. Didn’t go our way,” he said of the 4-1 loss, when the shots were 48-19 for the Preds. “So I don’t know the answer to that. Game 1, we did an awful lot of what we wanted to do and we didn’t get the results. Give them credit, they walked away with the win.”
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In a series where no team has won two straight and the road club has won four of the six games, it’s fair to question whose game plan has been any good for more than one night in a row.
So we reached out to an NHL coach for some intel. He’s been watching the series and makes a few points.
How the Preds can win:
If they check well and defend, they’ll end up scoring enough. If they get loose on defending, loose on coverage in front of the net, loose on board battles, the Jets will makes them pay. It’s 200 feet of five-man defending and let the offence go from there. They’ll give up little, and they’ll get enough to win.
This verbalizes the one constant in this series: When Nashville opens the door a crack with lax defensive play, Winnipeg pours in two or three goals inside that small window. Game 2: two goals in 29 seconds; Game 3: three in 2:51; Game 5: three in 4:31.
How the Jets can win:
If they control their emotions. You don’t have to hit a home run if Nashville gets a lead. Don’t be that inexperienced team that gambles when it doesn’t have to gamble; that breaks their game wide open just because they’re trailing by one in the second period.
Also, forechecking is an enormous part of Winnipeg’s game. This is the tug of war in this series: when Winnipeg’s forecheck upsets Nashville’s zone exits, the Jets win. When Nashville’s slick defence circumvents the Jets pressure, good things happen off the rush for the Preds.
Another big element that all coaches allude to is the hours and days leading up to the big game. When it comes down to one big game, a player can’t live it for two days or he’ll be emotionally spent and tight as a drum by puck drop.
Less is more, so make the meetings very short and don’t be introducing any new strategies at this point. Reinforce the ones that got you here, do it quickly, and get your players out of the rink as fast as you can.
In the movies, coaches make big dressing room speeches prior to games like this one. Here’s what Paul Maurice is saying to his team:
“Enjoy it. The whole part,” he said. “The nerves before the game. The tension of the game. The excitement of the game. You can’t be on pins and needles. You’ve got to feel good and be excited about it.”
You might lose this iconic Game 7 — someone has to. But don’t lose it because you were playing not to lose.
“You’ve got to know your team at this point,” Maurice said. “I’ve got a pretty good idea I know what I’m saying. That’ll be secondary to a certain kind of emotional level I’m trying to set in.
“Most of these games don’t turn on extra emotion, they turn on simplicity to your own game.”
Now Laviolette — a veteran of a Game 7 with his Carolina Hurricanes in the ’06 Stanley Cup Final, plus a resume filled with international events — just has to figure out how to make his game plan stick.
“We’re going to plan and scheme. We’re going to have a plan going into the game,” assured the Preds coach. “I can’t say it’s gone according to plan every game.
“It’s gone all over the map, as a matter of fact.”
Indeed it has.
We’ll take the Jets — 5-2.
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