We were lucky enough to have Alex from our friends in Nashville at the great blog On the Forecheck to join us and shed a little light on what the expect for the upcoming 2017 Stanley Cup Final. Let's learn a little about the Western Conference champion, shall we?
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After a long wind-up in the regular season--where the Preds didn't have their core blueline healthy and playing together until the final stretch of the season--the Predators gutted out a playoff berth despite losing five of their last seven games. Things did not look promising, but they did have a healthy and confident Pekka Rinne (who received regular rest due to the emergence of backup Juuse Saros) and an insanely productive top line of Ryan Johansen, Filip Forsberg, and Viktor Arvidsson.