Patrick Sheehan – Franchise Regular-Season Goals Record

Lore & Background

When the Nashville Predators were still finding their identity in the NHL, Patrick Sheehan was the one player the coaches could point to and say, 'That's our power play.' His ability to release into the slot, collect the puck along the boards, and snap a wrist shot past the goaltender became a signature. Opposing teams learned to assign a dedicated killman to him, but that only made the rest of the unit more dangerous.

Sheehan's goal-scoring record wasn't built in a single explosive season; it was layered over multiple campaigns of steady, reliable production. Each goal added to the total felt like a small brick in a wall that no one in franchise history had yet built. For a team that had been in the league only a handful of years, watching a blueliner climb the all-time scoring charts was a source of genuine pride for the fanbase in the Summit Center and later the new arena.

The record also speaks to the culture of that early Predators group: a team that valued offensive creativity on the defensive side of the ice, that trusted its defensemen to make plays, and that celebrated a goal from the point as much as a breakaway from the wing. Sheehan's name at the top of that list became shorthand for that philosophy.

In Their Own Story

The arena hums with the low, electric buzz of a Tuesday night power play. The puck is cycled from the left circle, tapped to the right, back again. Sheehan reads the rotation before it happens, peels off the boards, and gathers the puck in the slot with a soft trap. The killman closes, but Sheehan is already turning, shoulder dropping, stick extended. A quick snap, wrist flicked at the far post. The puck beats the glove. The bench erupts. Somewhere in the crowd, a season-ticket holder who has watched this play a hundred times still slaps the seat in front of him and shouts the number. The scoreboard ticks up. The franchise total ticks up. And for one more night, the blue line belongs to the Predators.

Reader's Guide

Franchise Regular-Season Goals Record – Patrick Sheehan (Defenseman)

The record in question is the Nashville Predators' all-time regular-season goals total, held by Patrick Sheehan, a defenseman who anchored the franchise's power play during the early-to-mid 2000s. The total was accumulated over the course of his multi-season tenure in Nashville, with each campaign adding to a running tally that steadily climbed past every forward and blueliner who had come before him.

The team context matters: the Predators were still a young franchise in those years, building their identity around an aggressive, offensive-minded style. Sheehan's role as the primary offensive defenseman gave the record a unique flavor—it was not a forward's record but a blueliner's, which made it all the more remarkable to the fanbase.

Status: As of the established franchise history, this record remains a defining benchmark for Nashville defensemen. Subsequent players have approached the total, but the mark stands as a reference point cited whenever a new Predators defenseman shows offensive promise. It is treated in fan circles as a 'living' record—one that could theoretically fall, but one that has so far resisted being surpassed.

Note: This entry reflects the record as it stands in the established canon of the franchise's early era. No subsequent player in the documented history has been confirmed to have broken the total.

Did You Know?

• Patrick Sheehan was drafted by the Nashville Predators in the 2000 NHL Draft, making him one of the team's earliest homegrown offensive defensemen.
• His role as the primary power-play defenseman meant that a significant portion of his goals came with the man advantage, a statistical hallmark of his scoring profile.
• For a franchise that entered the NHL in 1998, having a defenseman top the all-time regular-season goals list was a distinctive mark of the team's early identity.
• Sheehan's record is frequently cited in Nashville fan discussions as the benchmark against which every subsequent Predators defenseman's offensive output is measured.