The Nashville Predators have long been considered a well organized franchise that drafted well but couldn’t keep its assets because of budgetary restraints.
Uncertainty at the ownership level plagued them for a while, but a decade of steadiness has allowed them to thrive as they make their first-ever appearance in the Western Conference finals.
“I've been in Nashville almost 20 years, and when we started probably there was a lot of people that weren't sure whether Nashville was going to succeed,” said David Poile, the Predators’ general manager since they entered the NHL in 1998.