8 games into the 2007/2008 HFNHL season, the Nashville Predators are keeping up the pace they set during their 4 game-series against the St. Louis Blues to start the season. In fact, they improved on that.
5 wins and only 3 losses mean the hottest start of the team since GM Tony Kapfenberger has taken over 2 seasons ago. You don't have to do a detailed research to find out about the reasons of this rather surprising start. The team is playing a tight system, the young lineup plays with tremendous determination and grit and most important of all, second year goaltender Kari Lehtonen has been terrific between the pipes. Having started all games, Lehtonen boasts a 2.10 goals against averag and a save percentage of 93,2% both among the leaders in the league.
"Early on he certainly makes a strong case for AllStar-consideration" GM Kapfenberger said with a smile "but it has been a team effort. A lot more pieces than expected are falling into place. Rick Nash has been very good, getting good support from his linemates and our bottom six forwards are doing a great job helping out the defense and preventing the opponents from scoring. We have been pretty disciplined so far despite playing a physical game and thats all factors which lead to our current record."
Talking about Rick Nash, on a team who has some trouble putting the puck into the net, he has 4 goals and 5 assists, thats 4 points more than the 2nd leading scorer Chris Higgins. Nash is logging a lot of ice time on even strength and on the powerplay and he is taking advantage of it. Last night he set up a play at the end of a powerplay during a line change that saw Eric Perrin score his first goal of the season and the ensurance 3rd goal in a 4-1 victory against the Carolina Hurricanes.
"With all the good things happening, don't forget this is a young team. Their lack of expierience may eventually catch up - but they are having fun out there and they are winning a lot of games right now, so we are really happy as an organization." GM Kapfenberger said, knowing that he still has a lot of work to do to make the Predators look like he wants them to look...
5 wins and only 3 losses mean the hottest start of the team since GM Tony Kapfenberger has taken over 2 seasons ago. You don't have to do a detailed research to find out about the reasons of this rather surprising start. The team is playing a tight system, the young lineup plays with tremendous determination and grit and most important of all, second year goaltender Kari Lehtonen has been terrific between the pipes. Having started all games, Lehtonen boasts a 2.10 goals against averag and a save percentage of 93,2% both among the leaders in the league.
"Early on he certainly makes a strong case for AllStar-consideration" GM Kapfenberger said with a smile "but it has been a team effort. A lot more pieces than expected are falling into place. Rick Nash has been very good, getting good support from his linemates and our bottom six forwards are doing a great job helping out the defense and preventing the opponents from scoring. We have been pretty disciplined so far despite playing a physical game and thats all factors which lead to our current record."
Talking about Rick Nash, on a team who has some trouble putting the puck into the net, he has 4 goals and 5 assists, thats 4 points more than the 2nd leading scorer Chris Higgins. Nash is logging a lot of ice time on even strength and on the powerplay and he is taking advantage of it. Last night he set up a play at the end of a powerplay during a line change that saw Eric Perrin score his first goal of the season and the ensurance 3rd goal in a 4-1 victory against the Carolina Hurricanes.
"With all the good things happening, don't forget this is a young team. Their lack of expierience may eventually catch up - but they are having fun out there and they are winning a lot of games right now, so we are really happy as an organization." GM Kapfenberger said, knowing that he still has a lot of work to do to make the Predators look like he wants them to look...
