Predators look to future

Legwand helping honky-tonk hockey thrive in Nashville

You probably don't think of hockey when Music City, USA, comes to mind.

Juke boxes playing country songs, fringe leather jackets and cowboy hats, maybe, but not hockey.

Nashville may be just 650 miles southwest of Toronto, but the two cities couldn't be farther apart on the hockey map. The hockey capital of the world vs. the hockey capital of central Tennessee. "Wait, they play hockey in Tennessee?" any Toronto resident might ask.

Despite a lack of respect around the league, the Predators are showing signs of life midway through their fifth season.

On Nov. 23, Nashville was 2-10-4-4 and the team's playoff pledge to its season-ticker holders looked pretty foolish. Nine one-goal losses in the first 11 games had the players squeezing their sticks too hard. The fans were getting restless at the lack of offense. And rumors started swirling about the fate of head coach Barry Trotz.

But the Preds have bounced back to go 10-8-3-0 in their past 21 games. They remain in the cellar of the Western Conference, but are just seven points behind ninth-place Anaheim as of Friday.

And Nashville can point to its first-ever draft pick as a big reason for the recent spike in their play.

The organization has been waiting patiently for five years, but the emergence of speedy 22-year-old center David Legwand has helped the team realize through the dark days of expansion struggles that better times are ahead.

"There was a lot of negative press toward David," general manager David Poile said. "He was our first pick and hadn't lived up to our expectations or the media's expectations or the fans' expectations. But now we are seeing some of that maturity and we are just seeing the tip of the iceberg."

After scoring six goals and five assists in the first 20 games, Legwand has four goals and 15 assists in the past 21. But as importantly for Trotz has been Legwand's development into a Mike Modano-style two-way player. The comparison to Modano is natural because they are both Detroit natives, both left-handed, skate in a similar style, and Legwand even bares a passing facial resemblance to the Stars center. But for inspiration as a youngster, Legwand focused his attention closer to home on No. 19 of the hometown Red Wings.

"I watched Steve Yzerman ever since I was a kid," Legwand said. "The things that he's done in his career are amazing. It's great that he's had a chance to win three Cups. I watched him last year in the playoffs and it was unbelievable the effort he left out on the ice every night."

And the Predators love hearing that from the 22-year-old who they made the franchise's first draft choice in June 1998. Legwand was an offensive star with the Plymouth Whalers of the OHL in juniors, but has had to develop a defensive game to compete as a top-line player in the NHL. He has progressed to the point that Trotz is now comfortable using Legwand on the last shift of a game and says his faceoffs have improved dramatically.

"He's smart enough to read where the danger areas are away from the puck," Trotz said. "It's never a problem with him coming back. Leggy comes back hard, he breaks up plays with his speed, he anticipates pretty well and he has a good awareness. That's what Modano has, too, is that gift to prevent some things just on pure speed."

High draft picks don't always get it right away. And fans in expansion towns aren't knowledgable about the game yet, so they expect miracles right away. But like fellow high draft picks Vincent Lecavalier and Patrick Marleau, Legwand took several years to find a comfort level in his game.

"I was young when I came here," Legwand said. "The fans want you to grow up right away, but the team has been great taking time with all of the young guys here.

"You look at football and baseball, and not a lot of 18-year-old kids are playing professionally. They are going to college and then coming out at 21 or 22. I don't think you really mature until you 20 or 21. You are going to find the odd person that does earlier, but it's tough when you are 18 years old to come into a league where the majority of the players are 25-30 years old."

A series of meetings this summer with Trotz, Legwand, Legwand's parents and agent Pat Morris helped put his career goals back in focus. And it's a good thing, because Legwand was one or two more mediocre seasons from entering Alexandre Daigle territory.

"A lot of times when you are trying to get a player to play at the level he is capable of playing at, it is difficult for him to see what you are saying," Trotz said. "And sometimes you have to come at different angles. We all found out that we are on the same page. We all want him to be the best player he can be, so how can we make that happen?

"He realized that I'm not just being mean or hard on him, but I actually want him to succeed. I think all coaches want players to succeed, but when you are pushing guys sometimes it comes across the wrong way."

Trotz is one of the more underrated coaches in the league. Not even Scotty Bowman or Toe Blake could win with some of the injuries Nashville was forced to deal with early in the season.

Scott Walker sat out 17 games with torn rib cartilage, Vitali Yachmenev missed 18 games with a broken right thumb and Greg Johnson played just five games before suffering a concussion which has him out indefinitely. Now healthy again, the team is coming together and their reliance on such a young lineup for the past few seasons is paying dividends.

An early December trade of Mike Dunham to the New York Rangers gave the starting job to Tomas Vokoun, who has played well since inheriting the full-time gig. And the addition of Rem Murray in that deal gave Trotz a previously lacking versatility in his top-nine forwards.

Another key component has been the addition of left wing Andreas Johansson, who has been of the best bargains of the year. The 29-year-old Swede hoped to return to the Rangers, but Glen Sather asked him to take a paycut from his $650,000 salary of last season. Poile gladly scooped him up about a week before training camp opened at the same salary and Johansson has been their most consistent offensive player. In the first quarter of the season when no one else was scoring, Johansson carried the offense by himself.

"In the beginning I was doing good but the team didn't do good," Johansson said. "And you never put your personal success ahead of the team, so it's kind of hard when it goes like that. But since my shoulder injury, I'm getting back into good shape and starting to score again."

The rest of the team has caught up to him a bit, and Johansson continues to play well, especially on the power play. Playing with Legwand in the middle and Walker or Yachmenev on the right side, Johansson has been a welcome infusion of speed and skill into an offensively challenged roster.

"Three weeks ago we were in a deep, deep hole," Johansson said. "I don't see why we can't keep playing well and make the playoffs. The first quarter of the season was so bad, so if we can play as good for the next 20 games as we have for the past 20, I think we can do it. It's been getting better each week, but it couldn't really get any worse."

Like Nashville and Toronto, Johansson and Legwand don't have much in common on the surface. But their skilled skating has keyed a plucky puck renaissance in Music City. With fellow twentysomethings Denis Arkhipov, Adam Hall and Scott Hartnell up front, the Preds won't be worrying about their offense a few years down the road.

These chippy cats have proven there is hope yet for honky-tonk hockey. You might say the Predators finally have a Legwand to stand on.

King abdicates his throne in Columbus

The Blue Jackets made Dave King the latest coach to get the hook on Tuesday.

Expansion coaches are aware of what they are getting into. A run of three or four losing seasons is the expectation before they are jettisoned. An eventual firing is a tough inevitability, but it comes with the territory.

King may have got a bit of a raw deal with the timing of his dismissal. General manager Doug MacLean's move looks to have been a bit reactionary, letting King go the morning after a 5-1 loss to Nashville. Like Don Waddell in Atlanta, MacLean will now have a view of it from the bench. And he isn't likely to be bowled over by what he sees.

From King's perspective, it must be hard for him to watch the franchise draft a future bell cow like Rick Nash, knowing full well that he wouldn't be around to see the kid blossom in his 20s.

"You know that some day it will happen [getting fired], even though for a young team we didn't do too badly," King told the Toronto Sun. "In our last three games we had a win, a tie and a loss. Our power play was in the top third of the standings and our penalty killing was No. 1.

"That's why the firing caught me by surprise. You see, in December we had a tough schedule, having to play Detroit three times, St. Louis and Chicago twice each. This month the schedule will be much lighter."

CNNSI.com NHL analyst Darren Eliot played for King on the 1984 Canadian Olympic team. As with most anyone who has played for or worked with King, Eliot spoke glowingly of him.

"Dave is a terrific guy and one of the more knowledgable hockey guys on all fronts that you'll ever find," Eliot said. "He had a good run in Calgary but got bounced from there because he couldn't win the cup. When you take over a new sitaution like in Columbus, I don't know how you measure success."

Always showing positive spirit, King came into this season thinking that free-agent acquisitions Andrew Cassels, Scott Lachance and Luke Richardson would be enough to push them into playoff contention. And early in the season, it looked like he might be right. But a dip in their special-teams production caused them to start losing those close games that a hot power play had been helping them win.

Despite being on the coaching unemployment line, King retains the respect of his peers. And many expect him to find a job overseas, in the Canadian coaching ranks or back in the Canadian national program which he ran from 1983-92.

"I grew up listening to Dave King," Predators head coach Barry Trotz said. "He's taught a lot of hockey to a lot of people. He's a first-class guy on and off the ice. And he's forgotten more hockey than most of us have ever learned."

On the defensive

There was no shortage of e-mails concerning my midseason awards column earlier this week. Just a shortage of printable e-mails.

How I could leave Zdeno Chara, Adam Foote, Derian Hatcher and Kim Johnsson off the list of Norris candidates? Because, unfortunately, the Norris has largely become an award for offensive defensemen. Perhaps it's time that defensive defensemen get an award for themselves, too. The Hart is always going to go to an offensively skilled forward or a goaltender, leaving two-way and checking-line forward to shoot for the Selke.

In the past 20 years, only Chris Chelios and Rod Langway have won the Norris as defensive defensemen. And Chelios was even putting up some decent offensive numbers early in his career, so he could be considered a balanced blueliner. But other than those two, Paul Coffey, Ray Bourque, Brian Leetch, Rob Blake, Al MacInnis, Chris Pronger and Nick Lidstrom are all excellent offensive players.

But even arguing over this? I can't see anyone unseating Lidstrom for as long as he continues to play, so the Norris debate is probably a moot point.

Many people complained of the inclusion of young guys like Tom Poti and Dan Boyle in my top 10. While Poti does have defensive deficiencies, he has improved greatly in his own zone and his offensive skills outweigh his defensive lapses, something that wasn't the case even last season in Edmonton before he was dealt to New York.

Among my Hart Trophy "omissions," Todd Bertuzzi and Marian Hossa should indeed get MVP votes. But playing on the same team as Markus Naslund and Daniel Alfredsson, respectively, could hurt their causes, since they will likely split the vote with their teammates.

In the Selke rankings, Eric Boguniecki, Matt Cooke, Sergei Fedorov, Martin Havlat, Mike Knuble and John Madden all merit consideration as well.

Among rookie, early-season favorites Alex Frolov and Henrik Zetterberg have both hit the rookie wall and their production has fallen off significantly. The Wings are thinking of scratching Zetterberg to give him some rest, a fate that has befallen Frolov with the Kings of late, too. They could still bounce back and have productive second halves, but I didn't think they deserved inclusion in my top 10. And I picked Frolov as my preseason choice for the Calder, so you can be sure I'd let you know if he was doing well.

Jon A. Dolezar covers the NHL for CNNSI.com.

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