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VOL. 48 | NO. 16 | Friday, April 19, 2024

Playoffs bigger than milestone for rookie Evangelista

By Jim Diamond

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Having recently played his 100th career regular season NHL game, Predators forward Luke Evangelista is early in what looks like it could be a long career and is making the transformation into a veteran player who can do things that very few others can on the ice.

Evangelista put up huge numbers as a junior with the London Knights of the Ontario Hockey League, and the Predators selected him in the second round (42nd overall) in 2020.

After playing 24 games for the Predators last season, Evangelista is still considered a rookie by NHL standards, but now he will embark on his first NHL playoff experience, which is faster, harder-hitting, and much more intense hockey than the regular season.

Evangelista scored seven goals and added eight assists in his 24 games last season. As part of the new wave of young forwards, much was expected of Evangelista this season.

For Evangelista, playing his 100th game was a milestone worth noting.

“It’s surprising how fast it came,” he says. “I’m still a rookie in the league and I’ve already played 100 games. It’s crazy how quick the time goes by. 100 is cool, but hopefully there’s many more to go.”

There is an old saying about the NHL’s postseason, “It’s not hockey, it’s playoff hockey,” and Evangelista is about to get his first taste of NHL playoff hockey.

After an up-and-down regular season that has trended upward the last month and a half, many are counting on Evangelista to continue driving play now that the regular season has ended.

“What he’s really doing really well is he’s skating and he’s putting the work in,” Predators coach Andrew Brunette says. “Early in the year, I thought he waited for pucks, now he’s going to get pucks. When he does have the puck, he’s as dangerous as any guy in the league, I believe.”

A veteran of more than 1,100 NHL regular season games and 49 playoff games as a player, Brunette knows that players mature at their own pace. With that knowledge, Brunette has shown patience with the 22-year-old Evangelista.

“You can’t rush it,” Brunette says. “They’ll get there when they get there. I think he’s taken a step. He came out of the gate pretty well, then he had a little bit of an issue and wasn’t on top of his game for maybe two, two and a half months, then he found it. I think it’s normal, a little bit of a sophomore slump if you want to say. It was important he found it. When I was a player, once you figure out what you need to do to get your game back, that’s when you start maturing as a player.”

Even though he didn’t score a goal or record an assist, one of Evangelista’s most dominant performances came in the Predators’ April 9 overtime loss to the Winnipeg Jets.

In the game, Evangelista had 10 shots on Winnipeg goaltender Connor Hellebuyck and was noticeable for all the right reasons in the game. The 10 shots tied Filip Forsberg for most shots on goal by a Predator this season and were the most ever recorded in a game by a Predators rookie.

You can’t score if you don’t shoot, and Evangelista has that shooter’s mentality. He’s fourth on the team this season in shots on goal, trailing just Forsberg, Roman Josi, and Ryan O’Reilly. Even more impressive is that Evangelista sees less ice time than those others, approximately five minutes per game fewer than Forsberg and O’Reilly and 10 for Josi.

Evangelista and frequent linemate Tommy Novak trail just Josi on the team in shot attempt differential this season. That statistic measures the number of shots on goal for when a player is on the ice versus shots on goal against by the opponent. The stat is a measure of which team has the puck when that player is on the ice, and the Predators have the puck a lot when Evangelista is out there.

Now that Evangelista is seeing his first NHL playoff action, he and the Predators hope that his recent success continues, as his success helps contribute to that of the team.

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