What's the post-season look like for the Preds?

Welcome Smashville to your Mondays with Miles. Today we are going to dive into the Predators’ playoff outlook as the regular season winds down and see what is ahead for Andrew Brunette’s overachieving squad.

Few NHL talking heads pegged the Preds as a playoff team before the 2023-24 campaign, but with only four contests remaining, your Nashville Predators are a single point away from clinching an unlikely Stanley Cup Playoff berth. 

With the 17-game point streak in the rearview mirror, Smashville has fallen back to earth dropping four of the last six. However, last night’s come-from-behind shootout win at New Jersey was a reminder of who these boys are: resilient, determined, and feisty. As they crash landed into the All-Star break two months ago, the pundits’ preseason prediction that the new-look Nashville was a year away from a serious playoff run seemed correct.

But as we discussed a number of weeks ago, the fire Brunette lit under his team after taking them to task publicly turned the tide. Those who want to count the Preds out from making a run do so at their own peril. Let’s not forget the lone Stanley Cup Finals appearance in franchise history came when Smashville was the last Western Conference team into the postseason.

The only way the team misses the playoffs is if they lose out in regulation and the St. Louis Blues win out. That ain’t happening. This squad is getting in, most likely as in one of the two Wild Card slots. Colorado and Winnipeg are just out of reach in the Central Division standings. Vegas is in line behind the Preds for the other Wild Card spot.

The Vancouver Canucks lead the Pacific Division but are a few points behind the Dallas Stars for best in the West. As of this moment, the Canucks would be the Preds opponent. Vancouver is a long way away, and they have proven to be a matchup nightmare, beating Smashville in all three contests this year. Dallas is a monster all its own, but they’re the enemy we know better, matchup better against, and would not have to change time zones when traveling to the Lone Star State for games one and two. Any way you cut it up, we are the underdog, but an underdog everyone wants to avoid.

Head on out to Bridgestone Arena to support Smashville in their quest to clinch, Tuesday at 7:00 p.m. versus Winnipeg. From Miles Harrington

💥 Singin' Crime Still Don't Pay Last week, Jennifer Kraus of NewsChannel5 took a  thorough look at yet another instance of someone deemed "mentally incompetent" to stand trial being released back onto the streets, only to commit a series of crimes shortly thereafter. The someone in question, Johnson Lloyd, has a history of criminal activity across several states; he also has schizophrenia. Lloyd was first arrested seven years ago in Maryland for armed robbery and assault. However, because of his schizophrenia, he was deemed “not criminally responsible” and booked into a mental hospital for five years.

Upon his release, he headed to Tennessee, where he committed a series of crimes before landing behind bars for a year. According to Kraus’s investigation, the county doctors who conducted his mental evaluation didn’t just deem Lloyd too incompetent to stand trial, they also predicted he would “never likely become competent”; this wasn’t enough to admit him to a mental hospital, unlike in Maryland, and he embarked on another cross-country crime spree which only came to an end after he attacked and raped a woman in a Kentucky hotel lobby.

Davidson County General Sessions Judge Melissa Blackburn, who provided much of the information for the report, revealed how Lloyd slipped through the cracks: Tennessee does not provide rehabilitative services to those who commit felonies. To remedy this, she said, prosecutors could have dropped Lloyd's felony burglary charge down to a misdemeanor.​

👨‍⚖️ Relatedly, Shaquille Taylor, who killed Belmont student Jillian Ludwig after he was deemed unfit to stand trial, has a competency hearing set for May 1st. The family hopes he’s found competent to stand trial so that he may be held accountable for his crimes. Let’s hope the court does the right thing.

📜 Jillian's Law In response to these and other similar incidents, House majority leader William Lamberth introduced a key piece of legislation that would require mentally incompetent felony defendants to be committed to a mental health institution and bar them from gun ownership.  

😎 And on a lighter note... Morgan Wallen was booked this morning for throwing a chair off the rooftop of Chief's Bar last night. Nobody was hurt, but the chair did land near two MNPD officers on Broadway. The figure cut in Wallen’s mugshot looks less like America’s most racist white male country singer and more like your next-door neighbor who talks your head off while you’re checking the mail.

For many, Wallen’s drunken antics only add to his appeal, recalling a simpler time when stories about George Jones drunkenly driving a John Deere lawn mower were in the news. But not everyone thought it was funny.

DEVELOPMENT

• 15-Story Towers Planned For Dickerson Pike In East Nashville (Now Next)
• May opening set for cafe in Wedgewood-Houston (Post)
• Jack Brown's owners purchase in Germantown (Post)

THINGS TO DO

View our calendar for the week here and our weekly film rundown here.

📅 Visit our On The Radar list to find upcoming events around Nashville.

🎧 On Spotify: Pamphleteer's Picks, a playlist of our favorite bands in town this week.

👨🏻‍🌾 Check out our Nashville farmer's market guide.

TONIGHT

🎸 Indigo De Souza @ Brooklyn Bowl, 6p, $25+, Info
+ indie rock singer-songwriter

🪕 Val Storey, Carl Jackson, Larry Cordle & New Monday @ Station Inn, 8p, $20, Info

💀 Grateful Monday @ Acme Feed & Seed, 8p, Free, Info

🕺 Motown Monday @ The 5 Spot, 9p, $5, Info