Clarksville, TN – The hardest thing to endure as a sports fan is when your team is finally knocked out of the postseason.

It’s just leaves a pit in your belly and with feelings and thoughts of what could have been. Everyone hopes their team can bring home the championship and sometimes it happens and sometimes it doesn’t.

It didn’t happen for the Nashville Predators ^[1] and their hopes of securing their first-ever Stanley Cup were dashed Monday night when the Phoenix Coyotes beat them 2-1 in Game 5 to win the series four games to one.And if you’re a Predators fan you have every reason to belly-ache about the series loss to the Coyotes, because it’s Nashville that arguably plays in the toughest division in the NHL Central Division. It’s Nashville that arguably has the best goalie in the game in perennial Vezina Trophy candidate Pekka Rinne. And it’s Nashville that arguably had one of the biggest wins in Stanley Cup Playoff history when they dispatched the Detroit Red Wings in five games, a Detroit team that was two years removed from their last Stanley Cup Finals appearance and three years removed from winning their 11th Stanley Cup Championship.

Unfortunately, Phoenix had more mojo, energy and intensity and that led to the Coyotes winning.

But the Preds are making strides having made the playoffs every year but once since the 2003-04 campaign — remember there was a lockout in 2004-05 — so it’s been seven playoff appearances since the Preds were born in 1998.

This year marked the second straight time the Preds made it out of the first round and for an expansion team that progression is about right.

Rome wasn’t built in a day.

The Miami (then Florida) Marlins, which were born in 1993, won a championship faster than any other modern expansion team in the four major sports when they claimed the 1997 World Series. The all-time fastest was the 1926 expansion New York Rangers that won the 1927 Stanley Cup.

But besides the Rangers every expansion NHL team needed at least seven years before finally getting the chance to drink out of the Cup. The 1967-born Philadelphia Flyers won their first Cup in 1973 and the 1972-born New York Islanders got theirs in 1979.

So the Preds are right on track and after the progress made this year it wouldn’t be surprising to see them make that next step and make it to the Western Conference Finals next year .

Then after that the Stanley Cup will finally be within reach.

So Preds fans hold on, you’re close!