Vanilla Ice Cream

Vanilla ice cream.  Vanilla ice cream gets a raw deal in the cutthroat business of ice cream.  Some people think vanilla is too boring and blasé, not enough flavor.  You remember those ice cream cups you can buy at the fair and get the wooden spoons?  You had your choice of vanilla or chocolate but the chocolate ones were always gone by the time it was your turn.  So then they put in chocolate or fruit swirls in it to add flavor, didn’t really make a difference.  But if you know ice cream, you also know that getting a brand name made with BC cow milk (or your local cows) is really, really good, lots of flavor and you don’t need to add anything to it (ok Baileys goes good with everything).

You have read this far and probably thinking what does vanilla ice cream have to do with Nashville Predators?  Good question, because the Preds are like vanilla ice cream and not the good kind.  The team is boring, not a lot of flavor.  Has the basic ingredients to make it good but the cupboards needs to be restocked with new and better ingredients.  The current team has 1 – 2 prospects (22 and under) that can be considered grade A ingredients.  The rest is like the stuff you buy at the dollar store.

Now lets flip to purely hockey and less about ice cream.   The team has to take a cautious and long term approach.  No more moving picks or prospects, those have to be kept and then nurtured to be made in to really good tasting ice cream future hockey players.  The team also has to get ready for the expansion and FA. 

This off season there are 5 UFA and in 2023 there will be 10, yes 10.  Of course several of these are lucky to even have a current job so with the 2 UFA signing allowed per year (learnt that one after a trade) some tough decisions have to be made.  All is not lost, they have a top 5 goalie in Demko and young stud D man that regardless of the STUPID SIM stats is a top pairing guy in Girard.  So even with the 2 FA rule it does mean the same thing for all teams so the holes will be filled out that route at least for the next couple of years.  The team will be built from the net out with 1 – 2 top start on forward and 1 – 2 stars on D and the rest will be fill in with unique skills, i.e. DF or CK.

Chemistry is a huge thing for SIM leagues, teams without super stars can always win if you fill the rooster with the right blend of ingredients players.  For the 2022 playoffs, the team will be minor buyers, no futures will be sold.  In the off season changes will be made.  The Preds brought in several people to join the management team and now have one of the most diverse and inclusive management teams in TUFHL (no proof provided, just trust me) and this will create unique looks into building the team to take a real run at Lord Stanley.

The team will be a proper contender in 2023 or 2024 season, until then the team will make the playoffs and then who knows, anything can happen.