Barry Trotz wants more urgency from Predators

The Nashville Predators played a somewhat patient game to get a 4-1 win in game 1 of the series, taking advantage of an odd goal to shock the Blackhawks. Yet there were still some issues facing Nashville, particularly how the Hawks controlled play for much of the game and exerted themselves physically over the Predators.

In game 2, it was much the same except this time Antti Niemi was more than solid in net. Aside from the Hawks once again outhitting the Predators, Barry Trotz was not happy with how his team was consistently taking bad penalties. Talking to NHL.com:

“They score on a power play, we have a bad shift and then we take two more penalties,” he said. “When you have back-to-back-to-back penalties it’ll tax your bench and it’ll probably make you pay offensively down the road because you don’t have as much push. You really have to work to get through those penalties.”

The three straight penalty kills in the second period effectively killed any attack the Predators were able to muster in the first period, as the team was never able to effectively recover from goal scored on the first power play of the three.

Trotz is calling for more urgency from his team, a better overall team effort. When facing a team as deep as the Hawks, just hoping for a miracle effort by Pekka Rinne isn’t much of a plan for success.