Broadcaster Blog: The Playoff Century Mark

The Predators had to wait until their sixth season to make the playoffs, and all who were around remember the excitement - after all, it was the Detroit Red Wings the Predators who would be playing - remember it well.
In the years since that first round series in 2004, which the Preds tied 2-2 before falling in six games, the playoff games have piled up for the Predators. When they host the Winnipeg Jets in the second game of their Round Two series today, it will mark 100 playoff games in the team's history.
Maybe that number isn't so staggering in comparison to the 1,524 regular-season games the club has played, beginning on Oct. 10, 1998. But consider this: the team played 50 playoff games under their first coach, Barry Trotz, who went 19-31 in the postseason for Nashville, winning series against Anaheim in 2011 and Detroit in 2012. In that span, the team lost to the 2008 Stanley Cup Champion Red Wings in Round One and the 2010 Chicago Blackhawks in Round One as well. The team that beat them in Round Two in 2011, the Vancouver Canucks, were the Presidents' Trophy winners who then lost in the Cup Final to the Boston Bruins.

Peter Laviolette moved into the coach's office at Bridgestone Arena in 2014. His first Predators' team met the Chicago Blackhawks in the first round and fell in six games, including one double overtime and another in triple overtime. That Blackhawks team went on to its third Cup in six seasons.
The next playoff year featured the first two Game 7s in franchise history. The first, a victory in Anaheim. The second, a loss in San Jose as the Predators had more than 16,000 miles of air travel to play the 14 games. No one had an inkling that Game 7 in San Jose would turn out to be Shea Weber's last in a Predators' uniform.
That set the stage for the magical run to the Stanley Cup Final in 2017, starting with the shocking four-game sweep of Chicago in Round One, continuing with six games versus the St. Louis Blues and the six-game bloodbath that was the Western Conference Final against Anaheim. The Cup Final against Pittsburgh was another six-game series for a total of 22 last April-June and concluding with handshakes at Bridgestone Arena on June 11.
This playoff year has included seven games so far, for a total of 99 through April 27. Peter Laviolette has a playoff record with Nashville of 27-22 through 49 games and tonight's contest will be the 100th in team history.