Nashville Predators: Comparing This Team to 2016-17 Stanley Cup Team

NASHVILLE, TN - JUNE 11: Mattias Ekholm

We’ve come down to the final three games of the regular season and the Nashville Predators have a chance to clinch the playoffs tonight with a win over the Columbus Blue Jackets, and a little help from the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Let’s go back just a few seasons ago to 2016-17 when that Nashville Predators team too had to take it down to the wire to get into the playoffs. It was a team that finished with 94 points in the regular season, while this year’s team is on an 82-game pace to finish with just shy of 93 points.

You may remember that in 2016-17 the Predators stumbled down the stretch. They dropped five of their last seven games, but did beat the…