Predators Post Season Press Conference and Friday Round-Up

Yesterday's post season press conference with David Poile and Barry Trotz was a good statement about the pair's thoughts on the past season and what they are thinking moving forward through the summer and into next year.

The following three sets of videos are lengthy (about 40 min total) but are worth watching if you are a fan to look for any nuances or intonations that you may see as the two talk.

Some key points included:

• Unhappiness with the special teams and a vow to fix it (no matter what it takes)
• Continued attempts to retain Dan Hamhuis
• Possibility of re-signing Bouillon and Grebeskov
• Getting better at faceoffs and shot blocking and improved defense in general
• Increased pressure on David Legwand to produce at least 20 goals
• More consistency across the board
  

David Poile Opening Comments


Barry Trotz Opening Comments


Barry Trotz and David Poile Q and A

Last Night's game...

Last night's game between the Wings and Sharks got the second round off to a quick start. It is great that there was no break between the first and second round. The Wings fell behind 3-0 but came back and kept it a one goal game for a large part of the game before losing 4-3.

Tonight's Action...

Montreal visits Pittsburgh tonight at 6:00 CDT on Versus to get the Eastern Conference match started. It will be interesting to see if Montreal's success will carry over or if they will be tired from the first round.

In Pred Nation...

We had stories yesterday about the Wade Belak signing and about the OHL naming Ryan Ellis and Taylor Beck to their second team all-stars.

John Glennon has a good deal of information from yesterday's press conference. Bryan Mullen also discussed the issue with the special teams.

David Boclair focuses on Dan Ellis' desire to test the free agent market in order to get a number one goalie slot.

Mark Willoughby has his weekly My View posting with several hot topics from the non-hockey world.

From @predsradio: This just in: Joel Ward will throw out the first pitch at the Nashville Sounds game on Friday night. I'm not quite ready to make the jump to the Sounds just yet.

With the sad news of the end of Ads Short Shifts comes a best of piece.

I was a guest during the second half of the RLD Radio show yesterday alonge with Ryan, Anthony Curotolo and Chris Wassel discussing the second round of the playoffs. The first half houre is a good conversation with Craig Custance.

Mark at the View from 111 had the same number of correct picks in the first round as I did. I feel better now. He also has his second round picks which match mine. Not good.

Kelly at Preds Fanantic hates Chicago even more than she used to.

Paul McCann reviews his first round picks.

Josh C at Bleacher Report has a case for Dan Hamhuis moving on.

Defending Big D covets Dan Hamhuis.

Around the NHL...

The Hart Trophy finalists were revealed on Thursday with no surprizes. Sidney Crosby, Henrik Sedin and Alexander Ovechkin were revealed as the top three. Many wanted to see a goalie involved but it did not happen.

PHT gets the ball rolling with a summer long series of Ovechkin bashing. After the Russian debacle at the Olympics and the lack of heart in the series against Montreal, there is definitely a fire to throw gas on as to Ovie's status as the "worlds greatest player." I'm learning to appreciate Sidney Crosby more and more as time goes on.

I actually found someone with worse first round picks than me. Thanks to PHT's Brandon Worley for making me feel better.

From @mckennaconor: The city is hockey crazy. Here is one of the "calmer" videos taken last night on Ste-Catherine

VFMS has a preview of the Nuck-Hawks series with a face off between @mozy19 and @hawksnut.

Ted Leonsis congratulates the Habs at Ted's Take. This is a very nice gesture that had to be hard for him to write.

I'm not sure this Team USA is going to be very competitive at the World Championships. It looks like lots of folks skipping it after the Olympics.

Here's a great story about Brooks Laich changing a stranger's tire after the Cap's game seven loss.

From the Rink has a two part round-table story about hockey women. Several ladies we know participated. Here's Part one and Part two.

A rarity from @bigpapicp: Each seed is represented in the Stanley Cup quarters: SJ (1), Chi (2), Van (3), Pgh (4), Det (5), Bos (6), Pha (7), Mtl (8).

Intent to Blow had a really off piece about Ryan Miller's knitting. For some reason, they have a following among knitters per their analytics. Maybe this will bring the knitters into the light of day. They also have a post about the Coyotes name change to a a person who's name I will never mention in this space.

Chris Nadeau has the lead in The Hockey Zen's chicken dinner race.

Here is a horribly sad story from Adrian Dater about his dog that was attacked in his yard. Our condolences to the Dater family.

Here's a great video produced by the NHL for the Winter Classic featuring clips of the Boston - Philadelphia rivalry with tht music of the Dropkick Murphys.



Odds and Ends...

This seems like a neat BB app even though it has a fee involved. It will convert business cards to a contact entry for 10 cents per card.

Sports By Brooks has an incredible story about the number of affairs Tiger Woods was involved in. I frankly don't care about Tiger one way or the other but I am amazed at the coverage of this.

More Later...

Buddy Oakes for PredsOnTheGlass