The Nashville Predators weren't as dominant as they were last season, when they won the Presidents' Trophy, but still finished the season atop the Central Division heading into the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Nashville had its ups and downs, including early injuries to defenseman P.K. Subban (19 games, upper body) and forwards Viktor Arvidsson (21 games, thumb) and Filip Forsberg (17 games, upper body), but responded by winning five of its final six games and going 8-2-1 in its final 11.
"You look at our team and you see the depth. You go through our whole lineup and there's a lot of tremendous players on our club," forward Ryan Johansen said. "We're all coming together. We're a pretty darn good hockey team. The focus right now is there's still a lot of work to be done."
Dallas did a good job of holding off the Colorado Avalanche for the first wild card from the Western Conference, going 5-1-1 in its final seven games. The Stars have been strong defensively (2.44 goals against per game, second in the NHL), and their goaltending from Ben Bishop and Anton Khudobin, who were in the mix for the William M. Jennings Trophy for allowing the fewest goals in the NHL until late in the season, has been outstanding.
Last season, the Stars held the first wild card March 11, 2018. But they struggled down the stretch, including going 0-4-2 on a critical six-game road trip, which resulted in them missing the playoffs, something they said they learned from this time around.
"Last year, we were in a good spot like this year, then we went on that road trip and fell on our face," Stars forward Tyler Seguin said. "I think everyone had the experience of how that felt last year and didn't want to do it twice and got the job done."
