Nashville Focused On Fast Start to New Season

NASHVILLE — The Nashville Predators opened training camp on Thursday with two intense practice sessions at the Ford Ice Center in Bellevue. The morning began with new president of hockey operations and general manager Chris MacFarland stressing the importance of starting quickly, as slow starts have doomed the Predators in each of the last two seasons, leaving the franchise out of postseason play.

The Predators, under head coach Andrew Brunette, started 3-7 and 4-8 in the opening month of the year. Training camp is shorter this season, with two fewer exhibition matchups, but the expectation is clear. Nashville must get off to a better start in October to set the franchise up to contend throughout the season.

"Well, this is a unique camp, obviously, with how short it is, with the four exhibition games and the mandatory day off," Brunette said. "There's not a lot of time to be prepared. I thought today was a really good day. I thought the pace was high, guys were excited, which they should be with the first day of camp, a new set of eyes on them. I thought it was two really good practices, and we don't have a lot of time. I think that's the emphasis of our year here so far, that we've got to get geared up. We've got to get the engines rolling here right away here."

The first day was filled with one-on-one competition and physicality as the 55 players strive to show new management they belong on the roster. Oasiz Wiesblatt served as the prime example of the physicality Nashville needs as he delivered a crushing blue line check to new forward Vitali Pinchuk, knocking the KHL standout out of practice.

Nashville captain Roman Josi reitterated the message from management that starting fast isn't an option this year.

"Yeah, that's going to be huge," Josi said. "That's kind of what we talk about the most this year, especially in camp, going into the season. Obviously, the last few years we didn't get off to a good start. There's a lot of emphasis on that. I think this year even more so. You only have two weeks in training camp. We've had some really good weeks before training camp. We probably had almost our full team together for the last two or three weeks in Nashville, skating together, which is really good for us. I think now in camp the coaches putting emphasis on the start, they're putting emphasis on getting the system right, getting everything right. I think just having that awareness of the start is going to be big for us."

The Predators are back in the Ford Ice Center in Bellevue on Friday and have an intersquad scrimmage on Saturday before Sunday's first preseason matchup against the Tampa Bay Lightning, leaving little time to get things on track. If Nashville can start faster in October this year, the franchise will know Brunette is the man to lead this rebuild and the Predators will find themselves in playoff contention.