from Alex Prewitt of Sports Illustrated,

Ryan Ellis is standing outside the home locker room at Bridgestone Arena, near an emptied stick rack and the tunnel that leads toward the benches. Between his crisp silver suit and cascading ginger beard, the 5-foot-10, 180-pound defenseman looks as though he recently emerged from six months of hermitage in the Smoky Mountains and dressed up for a welcome-back-to-society press conference. Or like he had been awarded the honor of delivering the keynote address at one of downtown Nashville’s many conventions. Specifically, an international expo for leprechaun look-a-likes.

It’s early Thursday afternoon, not long after the Predators began and ended practice within 20 minutes, typically brisk under brusque coach Peter Laviolette. Most of Ellis’s teammates have already left for the airport, where the team plane awaits for another series-opening road trip, the third straight for the eighth seed in the Western Conference. Never in its 18-year history has Nashville advanced this far in the playoffs, a boon to both the franchise and its hockey-tonkin’ fans. And with the Predators standing just four wins away from reaching the Stanley Cup Final, a quest that begins Friday in Anaheim, few—if any, really—players have made bigger impacts than the unassuming 26-year-old idling in the hallway.

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