NASHVILLE —Calling the 2017 Predators your favorite team is a lovely way to begin a conversation. Calling the 2018 Predators the better team is a useful way to find out who was listening. Suddenly, everyone has supporting evidence. Someone has the standings. Someone has the playoff results. Someone remembers exactly where they were when Nashville reached the Stanley Cup Final and considers that information admissible.

This is one of the pleasures of following a franchise long enough to develop opinions that require context. The same history can support different conclusions, depending on what matters most to the person making the argument.

So, three Predators hills are open for discussion. Disagreement is welcome. Specifics will help.

The 2018 Predators Were Better Than the 2017 Predators

The 2017 team gets the better movie. The 2018 team gets the argument here. Nashville finished the 2016–17 regular season with 41 wins and 94 points. The following season produced 53 wins, 117 points, and the Presidents’ Trophy, awarded for the NHL’s best regular-season record.

Twelve additional wins and 23 additional points deserve substantial weight when assessing how good a team was. The objection is obvious and entirely fair, given that the 2017 Predators reached the Stanley Cup Final. The 2018 team lost to Winnipeg in the second round, ending with a 5–1 defeat in Game 7.

Winning in the playoffs was the assignment. The earlier team got considerably closer to completing it. Still, an evaluation of team quality should account for the entire season. Eighty-two games of stronger results belong in the discussion, even when the ending makes them harder to appreciate.

Choose 2017 for the season to relive. Choose 2018 for the team to send into another one.

David Legwand Belonged on Nashville’s First Quarter-Century Team

And yes, putting him there requires taking somebody off. The NHL’s Nashville Quarter-Century Team, announced in January 2025, placed Filip Forsberg, Mike Fisher, and Paul Kariya at forward on the first team. Legwand made the second. The change here would be Legwand for Fisher.

Legwand finished his Nashville career with 566 points in 956 regular-season games. He was the franchise’s first draft pick and, when he retired, held its career records for games, goals, assists, and points. A retrospective of a franchise should give considerable weight to the player who spent that much time helping establish it.

Fisher’s case has substance. He captained Nashville’s 2017 Stanley Cup Final team and produced 241 points in 429 regular-season games as a Predator. Leadership and a place at the center of that run make him a defensible selection.

But Legwand’s sustained production and longevity earn the edge here. His Nashville career covers an enormous amount of the work that came before the franchise’s most celebrated spring. The early chapters count, too. They required someone to play them.

The 2017 Chicago Sweep Was Nashville’s Most Satisfying Series Win

Nashville's win over Anaheim in 2017 delivered the franchise's first trip to the Stanley Cup Final. For the sheer satisfaction of the opponent, the result and the margin, give this one to Chicago.

The Blackhawks had eliminated Nashville in 2010 and 2015. In 2017, the Predators swept them in four games, outscoring Chicago 13–3. There is winning an argument, and then there is allowing the other side three goals over an entire series.

The appeal extends beyond revenge. Nashville entered that postseason as the Western Conference’s second wild card. Chicago was the conference’s top seed. Four games later, the standings didn't matter: the Predators advanced, and the Blackhawks went home.

The Anaheim victory has the stronger claim on historical consequence. Chicago offers the pleasure of a particularly thorough reversal against a team that had twice ended Nashville’s season. Satisfying leaves room for that distinction. It also leaves room for someone whose answer involves another opponent, another era, or a game they still remember shift by shift.

Which argument needs correcting? Which player deserves a stronger case? Which series still makes you reach for the highlights? Pick your Predators hill and bring the detail that makes it yours: a statistic, a sequence, a season, or a memory that the final score cannot quite explain. And if the answer is simply that Legwand belongs nowhere near Fisher’s spot, there is room for that