Fixing and Flushing: Nashville's Coaches and Players Decide What to Do With Tuesday's Tough Loss
After every lost hockey game, NHL coaches, players, and staff have a short window of time to determine what needs immediate correction and what should be…well…flushed. With sometimes just 24 or 48 hours between puck drops, that evaluation process has to happen quickly.
In Nashville, it began almost immediately after the Predators’ 5-2 loss to Anaheim Tuesday night. In the post game press conference, a disappointed Filip Forsberg was asked whether the team needed to focus on fixing mistakes or flushing a poor performance.
“A little bit of both,” Forsberg answered. “Everything you go through - good or bad - you take with you.”
“Obviously there are certain things that we should definitely leave, even in tonight, and not take with us. But we’ve got to get back to work tomorrow and try to tidy some of those things up and get back at it on Thursday.”
After practice Wednesday morning, head coach Andrew Brunette shared his process for deciding what to focus on and what to let go after a loss.
It’s a critical group project determined by both facts and a feeling.
“I think you sort it with your staff,” Brunette explained. “What you think is needed, the time of year it is, where it’s at.”
The fact finding includes reviewing film and analyzing advanced statistics. Brunette takes that information into account as he plans the “day after” agenda.
Wisely balancing facts and feelings is part of the process.
“You wake up in the morning, you have a certain feeling and then you trust your instincts,” Brunette said.
“I think honesty is a big thing,” veteran Erik Haula said. “We talk about it in here, about accountability. It’s honesty and video showing some of those bad things.”
“You hurt a lot after the game. You’re mad,” Brunette shared. “You wake up in the morning. You give up eight scoring chances. Anytime usually under ten and you have a really good chance to win the game. The problem was the scoring chances we gave up were too easy.”
“I thought today was a day that we just kind of flush out a little bit. We clean it out, cleanse it, go on the ice and understand that’s where we were, how we did it, and then we move forward.”
For players this is both an individual and collective endeavor.
“You have to look at yourself after every game, good or bad,” Haula said. “Why does the team struggle? How can I do better? And then you have to look at it and assess your own game.”
Self assessment after a tough loss isn’t easy.
“Honestly sometimes on a day like today with the kind of game you have as a team and personally, last night you wake up. You think about it throughout the night,” Luke Evangelista said.
“You’re not sleeping as good. It’s sitting with you for a bit.”
Coming together as a team to review film, talk through game breakdowns, and address corrections helps everyone turn the page.
“It sucks that night and the morning, and then by the time next practice rolls around, just being around the guys, you’re back on the ice doing your thing, you’re in the zone. At that point it’s kind of flushed out,” Evangelista said.
The quick NHL turnaround after a loss is blessing or curse depending on who you ask. The Predators schedule is packed with eleven games in the next seventeen days.
“Coaches always want more time,” Brunette said. “There’s never enough time to go through everything. I think we’re always feeling like we’re leaving something out, not quite as prepared as we want them to be in the course of these games. As a coach, we want more time.”
The players? They want right back out there.
“The turnover is great. Good or bad, you’re not sitting in it too long,” Evanglista said. “You can’t let yourself get too high, too low. You take maybe 24 hours - sometimes not even - to think about the game, watch it back, reflect, and you’re on to the next.”
After 48 hours of fixing and flushing, the Predators are on to the next tonight as they face the Vancouver Canucks in the second game of a five game home stand.