Throughout this series, the game has come down to which team has the better defense. And throughout this series, the answer has mostly been the Nashville Predators. At times the Ducks managed to have as good an offense as the Preds did a defense, but they never matched up well as a defense. That was the case in Game 7, as the Predators, as offensively-lacking as they are, managed to beat the Ducks through a terrific defense and Pekka Rinne getting hot.

Don’t get me wrong, the Predators don’t have a bad offense… this season. The addition of Ryan Johanson, as I’ve said before, has made them competitive and given them some depth – as we’ve seen, necessary in the playoffs. This team certainly is better than the team that scored three on the Blackhawks very quickly and chased should-be Vezina nom Corey Crawford in a period. That’s saying something.

But when it comes down to it, the Predators are a team that focuses on defense, and the defense pulled through for Nashville. It won them four games in this series, and I’m sure the Predators hope their defense will help them through to face either St. Louis or Dallas.

Meanwhile, this was a clash of defenses. Again, the Ducks aren’t bad defensively, just not matched to Nashville. Frederick Anderson did a great job in this series after replacing John Gibson, and he probably should have done so earlier. Anaheim will hope to improve their defense this offseason… but there’s a lot of teams hoping to do that.

The scorers in this game proved to be able to overcome the defense, and the Predators did it first and returned quickly. Both goals came in the first period, and the Ducks were able to shut them down afterwards. Unfortunately, Rinne and the defense of the Predators were also in shut down mode, and when Ryan Kesler scored in the third, it was too little too late. The Predators won on just two goals, rare for the playoffs so far this season.

It was an exciting game seven, and a good end to the first round of the playoffs, which oddly ended after the second round started. I feel like the NHL needs to get it’s priorities in order and switch the order of the games last night. But we’ll talk about the problems the NHL is facing this playoffs in an upcoming article.

The Predators have a challenge awaiting them, as the Sharks have a better defense than the Ducks and are well rounded in the attacking zone as well. It’ll be interesting to see the Preds approach in the next series, but I’d be shocked if they were able to use the same tactics as they did against the Ducks.