NASHVILLE http://www.avalancheshoponline.com/authentic-j.t.-compher-jersey , Tenn. (AP) Predators coach Peter Laviolette’s biggest challenge adding Finnish scoring whiz Eeli Tolvanen has been finding a spot for the teenager in his lineup.Yes, the Nashville Predators are that deep.It’s why the defending Western Conference champions have turned in their best season yet with their sights set on finishing what they couldn’t a year ago. Savvy drafting, surprising trades and a handful of salary-cap friendly contract extensions have the Predators on the verge of what could be a dominant run in the NHL.Boston, the Los Angeles Kings and the Chicago Blackhawks have run into salary cap issues or injuries that slammed the window shut on chasing the Stanley Cup. Dean Lombardi, who won two Stanley Cups with the Kings, said he thinks Nashville general manager David Poile has done the best job yet giving the Predators the chance to compete for the next five years.”He’s still got to win it, but I think he’s certainly positioned for that,” Lombardi said. ”To put a team of this quality together, which is one heck of a team. They can beat you in so many ways. They don’t have a weakness, and to be flexible going forward, I think is a remarkable job.”The Predators not only are in the playoffs for an 11th time in the franchise’s 20 years, they head into the postseason having clinched their first Central Division title and Western Conference regular-season title with a 4-3 win at Washington on Thursday night. Then a few minutes later Youth Matt Nieto Jersey , Boston’s 3-2 loss at Florida handed Nashville its first Presidents’ Trophy for good measure.Veteran center Mike Fisher, who unexpectedly came out of retirement in February to rejoin the Predators, sees an even deeper roster than a season ago. Despite not having a single player among the NHL scoring leaders, eight Predators have at least 48 points apiece this season along with four different 20-goal scorers.”No question it’s stronger than last year for sure, as strong as I’ve been a part of,” Fisher said. ”You look at last year, you lose a couple key guys, and it made it tough. We were still real close. You just never know. Hopefully, we stay healthy. But you just never know. It’s always great to have that.”Poile didn’t stand pat with a team that lost the final to Pittsburgh in six games.With Fisher taking until August to announce his retirement , Poile signed center Nick Bonino as a free agent. Poile also signed center Ryan Johansen to the longest and richest contract the Predators have ever given out on their own, signing the then 24-year-old center to an eight-year, $64 million deal in July a couple days after signing Viktor Arvidsson to a seven-year deal.Those contracts Mikko Rantanen Jersey , combined with a six-year deal in July 2016 for Filip Forsberg, tied up Nashville’s top line through the 2021-22 season for a tidy sum of $18.25 million per year.Poile joined Ottawa and Colorado in a three-way trade in November, bringing center Kyle Turris to Nashville . Poile also signed Turris to a six-year, $36 million extension, keeping him under contract through 2023-24 like Johansen and Arvidsson. The Predators gave Fisher a one-year deal.Poile still had enough money to land forward Ryan Hartman at the trade deadline from Chicago, a seller that will finish last in the Central Division.One deal that could haunt Nashville depends on defenseman Shea Weber, the former captain traded to Montreal for defenseman P.K. Subban . That deal netted the Predators a younger and cheaper defenseman, but Nashville needs Weber to play until he’s 40 to finish the 14-year, $110 million deal first offered by Philadelphia or face a salary cap hit that would cost more in 2025-26 than the Predators’ current defense corps.The Predators are focused on this postseason with Laviolette taking advantage of his depth not to rush anyone back from injury.”Winning always solves a lot of problems, and we’ve been able to do that inside of this game plan,” Laviolette said.To some critics, adding Tolvanen at the risk of needlessly burning a year on the forward’s entry-level contract seemed almost like too much.Not to the Predators who remember forward Kevin Fiala breaking his leg in their second-round series with St. Louis last spring or Johansen needing emergency surgery for acute compartment syndrome suffered during the Western Conference finals against Anaheim. Johansen said depth matters most in the playoffs.”We feel like we’re in a great spot right now going into this postseason http://www.avalancheshoponline.com/authentic-nathan-mackinnon-jersey ,” Johansen said. ”We got a lot of bodies that can not only play certain roles, but versatile players that can step up and be great players in any area of the game. So for us, our team feels really confident in what our capabilities are.”— The Montreal Canadiens are off to an unexpectedly good start this season with a 4-1-2 record but are facing their first bit of adversity as they prepare to host the Calgary Flames at Bell Centre on Tuesday.The Canadiens twice blew two-goal leads and ultimately lost 4-3 in overtime Saturday to the Ottawa Senators, another early-season surprise. “You have to learn from losses,” Canadiens forward Brendan Gallagher told montrealcanadiens.com after practice Monday. “You learn more from a loss than you do from a win. We made some mistakes. We understand the errors we made.Article continues below ...“After our previous losses, we’ve done a pretty good job of responding. This is a little bit of a different situation, where we let a lead slip away. Now we have to react the appropriate way, come back strong with a good effort and learn how to play in those situations.”Canadiens goaltender Carey Price, who gave up four goals on 34 shots against the Senators, will be under the microscope. He gave up a weak goal on a shot along the goal line by Ottawa’s Mikkael Boedker that cut the Canadiens lead to 3-2 on Saturday.Price, who is in the first year of an eight-year, $84-million contract that pays him $15 million this season Patrick Roy Jersey , ranks 34th in the NHL in save percentage (.904) and 25th in goals against average (2.57).The Canadiens are expected to go with the same lineup which means forwards Charles Hudon (healthy scratch), Tomas Plekanec (back) and defensemen Victor Mete (hand) could be out. Mete could play which could result in Karl Alzner, who had a rough night against Ottawa, being scratched.The Canadiens must improve in the faceoff circle. They are last in the NHL with a 42.6 winning percentage. They lost both faceoffs in overtime against the Senators, when possession is critical in a 3-on-3 situation, before losing the game.“At the end of the day, I think there’s a lot of things that go into being a good faceoff guy,” Canadiens coach Claude Julien told The Montreal Gazette. “For certain guys, it’s the experience of going through the league at least once, knowing the centremen they’re taking them against. You learn to see the tendencies. You also understand that there’s some experience that comes into play. “There’s also guys that have a real good eye-hand co-ordination that’s unbelievable. Some of it is determination. There’s so many things that come into play as far as being a centerman.”The Flames are ranked eighth in the NHL in faceoff winning percentage at 52.3 percent.Calgary is coming off a 4-1 win against the Rangers in New York on Sunday. Elias Lindholm, 23, whom the Flames acquired from the Carolina Hurricanes along with Noah Hanifan for Dougie Hamilton in June Womens Samuel Girard Jersey , is tied for the team lead in goals with five.He has been playing on Calgary’s top line with Johnny Gaudreau and Sean Monahan.“We built some chemistry pretty early in the season,” Gaudreau told the team’s website. “He’s a great teammate and a great player, a smart player, so it makes it easier to (transition) when you’re playing with that good of a guy and that skilled of a player. Hopefully we can keep building off of it because I know all three of us have five, six years left on our contracts in Calgary.”Calgary coach Bill Peters, who also joined the Flames from the Hurricanes, coached Lindholm in Carolina after the Hurricanes selected him with the No. 5 pick in the 2013 NHL draft. “Lindy has been a good player for a long time,” Peters said on calgaryflames.com. “He probably came into the league a little bit early. He played right after he got drafted and then got hurt and went down to the American league and back up, so I’m very familiar with his path. But he’s a very smart player, a very reliable player who can play center and wing, real good on face-offs. He’s a good player and that’s why he got drafted where he got drafted and we’re excited to have him.”