Don’t tell Ryan O’Reilly that he’s the Nashville Predators’ most important player all season.
Especially after what happened on January 24th between the Predators and Utah Mammoths.
“I’ve always been trash,” O’Reilly said. “Just losing fights, not winning a lot of faceoffs… I’ve got to get better.”
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This self-criticism came after Nashville (24-23-4, 52 points) lost early to Utah State (27-20-4, 58 points) and allowed three consecutive goals to the Mammoths in the second period. Then, unlike their win over the Senators on Jan. 22, the Predators couldn’t come back, falling 5-2 at Bridgestone Arena.
“The second quarter, it got away from us. Especially because my job is to work harder against their top line,” O’Reilly explained. “They had a couple big goals there. This is a couple games in a row where me and my lineup haven’t been able to play the way we need the rest of the top line to function.”
There’s some truth to O’Reilly’s statement about the recent losses. The Predators’ top line of O’Reilly, Filip Forsberg and Luke Evangelista were outmatched by the Mammoths’ top line of Clayton Keller, Nick Schmaltz and Keller Yamamoto. The latter scored twice in the second period to turn the game around and held off the Predators’ comeback in the third period.
“My point is, we can’t feed their top players,” O’Reilly said. “That’s what we did. It caught up with us, it caught up with myself. I got a little lucky there, so it comes back to reality. It’s hard work. Gotta get back to what I do, defend and work hard on the right side of the puck.”
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That loss aside, O’Reilly’s importance to the Predators this season cannot be understated. He has led Nashville in points almost all season and currently has 50 points in 51 games. He’s also their most skilled center forward and the unquestioned leader up front.
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Of course, this kind of self-deprecation is nothing new for O’Reilly. On November 6, following a 3-1 loss to the Philadelphia Flyers, O’Reilly claimed that he had “only had one good year in his career” and “couldn’t throw a six-foot pass to save his life.”
Since then, O’Reilly has scored 40 points in 34 games, leading the Predators back to the playoffs. Although Nashville was in last place in the Western Conference on Nov. 25, it is currently three points away from the final wild-card spot.
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Alex Daugherty is a writer on The Tennessean and Predators. Contact Alex:jdaugherty@gannett.com. Follow Alex on X (the platform formerly known as Twitter), @alexdaugherty1. Also check out our exclusive Predators Instagram page @tennessean_preds.
This article originally appeared in Nashville Tennessean: Why Predators’ Ryan O’Reilly called himself ‘trash’ after loss to Utah
