Nick Blankenburg has been an unheralded success in Nashville

It’s been an up-and-down season for the Nashville Predators made possible by a nightmarish start to the year and a surge back into the playoff picture over the past couple of months.

Some strong individual performances have pushed the team back into the race recently, most notably the return to form of Steven Stamkos, who has hammered home 13 goals in his past 19 games.

But another, less heralded, contributor has been defenseman Nick Blankenburg, who mostly out of nowhere is turning in the best season of his young NHL career. With 21 points in 42 games, he’s already topped his career high of 16, which he set in 60 games a season ago.

On Thursday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, host Tyler Yaremchuk and co-host and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton were joined by former Predators goalie and current NHL analyst Chris Mason to discuss Blankenburg’s ascension into a highly impactful NHL defenseman.

Carter Hutton: “Yeah, Mase, you know, you’ve been around the game for so long, right? I think back to my time in Nashville, you know, I spent three years there. And I remember going through free agency… I remember calling you, like, for help and trying to manage it. And what players do you see, kind of how I was, an unknown player? Is there anyone in Nashville that’s not really a household name that you would see as a guy that’s been a big impact player in Nashville that is going to kind of cut his teeth more in the NHL?”

Chris Mason: “Well, if I’m going to pick one guy, and this is a guy, you know, we’ve talked to the management in Nashville, and then Barry Trotz and stuff, is Nick Blankenburg. This kid, I mean, you want to talk about an underdog story. This is just such a great story. He’s such a great person. He’s the hardest working guy. He’s not big, but he’s, you know, in every metric, I mean, offensively, I think he’s only second behind Roman [Josi]. You see the guy play as big as anybody on defense in terms of physicality. Obviously, he’s not a Nic Hague, six-six type of a player, but, you know, he has that impact on the game of when guys get to the net, he’s, going to make you pay. And, you know, he penalty kills at forward. He’s played forward in his career as well, and he’s able to do that. And that’s a guy that I think… if the Preds aren’t able to lock him up long term, I think that’s going to be an attractive guy that maybe not be on the top of all the free agent lists and things like that. He’s been unbelievable. He penalty kills, like I said, at forward on defense. He does it all.”

You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here…