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Nashville Predators
Overall: 27
Central Division: 4
David
Poile, Nashville's G.M., knew free agency and the expansion draft
would bring his first-year Predators grizzled veterans,
peach-fuzzed prospects and crooked-nosed grinders. But
Poile wanted desperately to move up from the third pick of
the
June 27 draft and make either Vincent
Lecavalier or David Legwand the cornerstone of his team. For
days he bombarded San Jose
general manager Dean Lombardi, who had the second pick,
with phone calls. With just minutes to spare on draft day,
Lombardi
sought out Poile on the floor of Buffalo's Marine Midland Arena
and offered to trade down for Nashville's second-round
pick. After Tampa Bay took Lecavalier first overall, Poile
grabbed the
6'2", 180-pound Legwand, a swift-skating center from
Grosse Pointe, Mich., who had 54 goals and 51 assists last
season for the Plymouth (Mich.) Whalers of the Ontario
Hockey
League.
If inexperience—or his bout with
mononucleosis—keeps Legwand, an 18-year-old who has been
compared with Mike Modano, from starting the season with
Nashville, the Predators will try to milk
goals from a scoring-by-committee attack led by veteran center
Darren Turcotte. Free-agent forward Tom Fitzgerald will
provide leadership. Enthusiastic Barry Trotz gets his first
NHL head-coaching job after four years with the Portland
(Maine) Pirates,
Washington's top minor league team. Trotz has promised a
"fast-paced, in-your-face"
club.
Regardless of how well they perform, the Predators will
play to a large house. The club, which held Hockey 101
clinics to educate fans, has sold more than 12,000 season
tickets with the help of a billboard campaign featuring
country singers Garth
Brooks, Vince Gill, Amy Grant and Lorrie Morgan—each with one
or two teeth blacked out—and the slogan
GOT
TICKETS? The Predators'
$160 million arena is adjacent to the original home of the Grand
Ole Opry and near a collection of old-fashioned
honky-tonks. "We know they like their music
here," says Poile. "The next step is to see how
many of them are hockey
fans."
—By Johnette Howard
Fast Fact
The Predators, playing in one of the NHL's best divisions,
could help set the record for largest point differential
between a first- and a last-place team. The 1975-76
Capitals hold that mark, having finished 95 points behind
the
Canadiens.
Keys To Success
- Highly regarded goalie Mike Dunham needs to come up big
because the Predators have few offensive weapons.
- Nashville's youngsters must follow the lead of gritty Tom
Fitzgerald, who played on the expansion Panthers and knows what
it takes for a first-year team to succeed.
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