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TORONTO -- The early-season struggles of the Nashville Predators werent just about a team trying to find cohesion with new parts on the ice. Jatavis Brown Jersey .It was just as much about Nashville redefining its leadership core following the departure of former captain Shea Weber as well as other veterans such as Barret Jackman, Paul Gaustad and Eric Nystrom.And what youre seeing now, perhaps -- as the Preds have picked up points in six straight games (4-0-2) heading into their game Tuesday against the?Toronto Maple Leafs?-- is a team that has defined its pool of leaders through that early adversity.When you lose a lot of players, not just Shea, guys are figuring out where their spot is early in the season, new captain Mike Fisher said on Tuesday after the teams morning skate. So its all kind of new on the ice as well as off the ice. I feel like we went through a stretch where we realized we were a lot better than we were but [figured], Lets learn through it. I feel like were coming out better on the other side. Were figuring out how we need to play, our identity.Added alternate captain James Neal: Everyone is going through the change with new roles, a lot of younger guys, and new faces. Thats part of it. But we knew wed come out of it. Its all part of hard work.Its also part of the legacy that a guy like Weber left behind. Go around the Predators room like I did on Tuesday, and youll see the players faces light up when asked to put into words what their former captain meant to them.He had an amazing presence, said winger Colin Wilson. Hes one of the best guys I ever played with, best leaders, thats what hes known for. He set the tone every single day.The way Weber handled his day-to-day approach still influences his former teammates.Just seeing him working hard every practice, every day in the gym ... he never took a day off. He was just a true professional, said defenseman Mattias Ekholm. It was a pleasure to grow into the league with a guy like that as a leader. You feel how blessed youve been to have had a guy like that to look up to, and try to be as good as him every day.As his?Montreal Canadiens teammates are learning, Weber sets the tone by what he does, not so much what he says.He wasnt a huge talker, Wilson said. Its more that he showed up, and when you have a leader whos dialed in every single day, every practice ... . He never took any days off, he led by example. Hes an intense guy and hes somebody you wanted to play for. Hes also a lot of fun, he kept the dressing room pretty light.Added Neal: Sheas just a great guy, a great person, a great hockey player. He didnt need to say much. Thats the kind of leader he was and the kind of guy he is. When there were problems, he would be able to hide them. He put his work in every day, and if you didnt put the work in with him, you were falling behind. All great leaders are like that. He was a fun guy to play with.Talented blueliner Roman Josi, an alternate captain, is growing into a bigger leadership role.Its definitely kind of new for a lot of guys, said Josi. You just kind of grow into a leadership role and try to learn from the older guys. You try to get more comfortable with it.The player acquired for Weber, the dynamic P.K. Subban, is part of that group of guys who can each lead in their own way. For Subban that means delivering on the ice (the defenseman is tied for fourth in goals, with three, and points, with eight), but also trying, in times of adversity like the Predators had in the opening month (losing six of their first eight games) to keep the right frame of mind at the rink.It has been a challenge. I really believe that a lot of the outcome of whatever the situation youre in is determined by your attitude and how you approach it, Subban said on Tuesday. I always approach everything with a positive attitude. I seem to get more success doing that than anything else.Picked by many before the season as serious Stanley Cup challengers, the Predators are showing signs of becoming that team. And Ekholm said the early-season losses, while frustrating, might have been a blessing in disguise because they forced everyone in the room to understand what it was going to take.I think we can be a contender, but not unless everyone works hard and understands their roles and what have you, said Ekholm. We have strong leaders in this room still with a lot of the older guys. We got a lesson in the beginning and now were finding our stride. We just have to keep at it. Adrian Phillips Jersey . Manuel was offered a position the day he was fired. He accepted earlier this week and the team made the announcement Friday. Melvin Gordon Jersey . -- Lou Brocks shoulder-to-shoulder collision with Bill Freehan during the 1968 World Series and Pete Roses bruising hit on Ray Fosse in the 1970 All-Star game could become relics of baseball history, like the dead-ball era. http:///...ksdale-jersey-online . He said Tuesday thats a big reason why he is now the new coach of the Tennessee Titans. Whisenhunt said he hit it off quickly with Ruston Webster when interviewing for the job Friday night. Robin Smith v West Indies, Edgbaston 1995 Its a myth that England has just discovered S&M. It was on TV often in the first half of the 90s, and before the watershed too. Robin Smith was 50 shades of black and blue on a number of occasions after being assaulted by West Indies sadistic fast bowlers, and he relished every bruise. When he was batting, it was clear why machismo is a near-anagram of masochism. He was addicted to the challenge and the adrenaline rush of a cricketing joyride, and did not care for conventional notions of pain. Whats the definition of pain? he said. Pain for me is blokes I know getting bayonets stuck into their thighs and calves during the Rhodesian war.Yet even Smith had a pain threshold, just about. When he was batting against Courtney Walsh and Ian Bishop at Edgbaston, the bounce was so nasty and unpredictable that Smith wore a visor for one of the few times in his career. He also says it was one of only two times he was in the zone. He made 46 and 41 in totals of 147 and 89 and batted 300 minutes in the match, which was over before lunch on the third day. In total, England only lasted 372 minutes. Smiths captain Mike Atherton, who knew a few things about courage, later said it was the bravest batting he saw during his career.Yet Smith was an indestructible hero with porcelain confidence, and could be brought to his knees by more insidious forms of bowling; he was physically scared facing Shane Warne. In a sense, he was the point at which old and new masculinity meet and, for my teenage self, an introduction to the nuances and complexities of adulthood: the strong, silent, insecure type. There have been few more fascinating cricketers.Smiths insane courage was so stirring that his sheer skill at playing fast bowling is sometimes forgotten; not so much his defining square cut but the suppleness and reflexes that allowed him to jerk away from bouncers like a limbo dancer a millisecond before they reshaped his face. For a young and essentially cowardly England cricket fan, there was no greater vicarious thrill, and no greater hero.Desmond Haynes v India, Jamaica 1983 Batting needs its own inflation calculator. The pace of scoring has increased so much this century that we need a tool to tell us exactly what historical innings are worth. A good example is Desmond Haynes 34 from 21 balls in West Indies stunning victory over India. His scoring rate does not look that spectacular to modern eyes, but it was 22 years ago: at the time it was the fastest recorded innings of 20 or more by an opener in a Test.It sparked one of the great steals, West Indies version of the miracle of Adelaide. At tea on the final day India were 168 for 6, a lead of 165. Then Andy Roberts took four quick wickets and the captain Clive Lloyd told his side to go for the runs, an instruction that verged on the anarchic in the climate of the time. Haynes, usually the relatively sober partner to Gordon Greenidge, went off like a pacemaker, hitting four fours and a six in an innings Wisden called delightful.As word spread around Kingston that something magical might be happening, the crowd grew. That meant there was an appropriate audience for an innings that Viv Richards, despite some extremely stiff competition, regards as his favourite: a storming 61 off 36 balls, made with a broken thumb. West Indies won with four balls to spare. The chase of 172 is still the fastest of over 100 in Test history, and looks pretty impressive even without an inflation calculator.AB de Villiers v Australia, Adelaide 2012 The moment I realised AB de Villiers could do anything was when he did nothing. His monastic 33 from 220 balls, which helped South Africa to an epic draw, was a masterpiece of apparently effortless self-denial. A man who can hit any ball to any part of any ground did nnot hit a single boundary. Brandon Facyson Jersey. At 220 balls, its the longest boundary-less innings in Test history. (Oddly, the fourth longest was also played by a man called de Villiers in Adelaide: Fanie lasted 170 balls for his 30 in January 1994.)We often refer to the oxygen of runs, yet really runs are more like food - you can survive without them for far longer than you realise, but that is rarely evident in a modern culture of impatience and instant gratification. De Villiers showed what can be done if you train your brain accordingly. For his next trick, six days later, he smashed 169 off 184 balls to win the series.Winston Benjamin v Pakistan, Barbados 1988 The word immaturity can have positive connotations too. Ask any West Indies fan who was at the Kensington Oval on April 27, 1988. Pakistan, the only team to consistently stand up to the great West Indian side of the 80s, led 1-0 going into the third and final Test. West Indies proud unbeaten records - 53 years in Tests in Barbados, 15 years in a series at home, eight years in a series anywhere - were about to disappear. In a medium-scoring scrap they were 207 for 8, needing 266 to win, when Winston Benjamin came to the crease.The situation was pretty fraught; Abdul Qadir, exasperated when Jeff Dujon survived a huge bat-pad appeal, had just punched a heckler. Benjamin was 23 years old, playing his fourth Test. His immaturity was a blessing, because he had not fully grasped the significance of what was going on. And even that which he did understand did not faze him. Positive visualisation comes instinctively to the young.Benjamin reversed the usual relationship between junior and senior partner. While Dujon held up an end, he tucked into Qadir, slog-sweeping and straight-driving sixes out of the ground, one of which injured a passer-by. He learned to pick Qadir - kind of. He heard the wicketkeeper Saleem Yousuf say legbreak, googly, flipper, and repeated it to himself. (Qadir became so exasperated by the umpires failure to read his flipper and give lbws that he told them in advance when he was going to bowl it.)It was off a pre-picked googly that Benjamin smacked the winning boundary. He had made 40 from 72 balls in a partnership of 61 with Dujon. He only realised the size of his achievement when he got to the dressing room and found his captain, Viv Richards, in tears. Len Hutton v Australia, Sydney 1946 For such a numbers-oriented game, cricket has always had a keen eye for the qualitative ? perhaps never more so than during this Test. Don Bradman and Sid Barnes both made 234 each in Australias innings victory, yet all most people were talking about after the game was Len Huttons 37 in 24 minutes, an innings drenched in glory. Neville Cardus, in the Guardian, said it elevated a match of mass production and utility to the realms of fine art.It may have been fine art, but it also had cult appeal. Those who saw it talked about it until their dying day; so did many of those who didnt. A young Harold Pinter heard about it on the radio, and it became instant serotonin. Sometimes, when I feel a little exhausted with it all and the worlds sitting heavily on my head, I pick up a Wisden and read about Len Huttons 37 in 24 minutes in Sydney in 1946.Hutton took Keith Miller and Fred Freer to the cleaners, driving and pulling with exhilarating authority, until, off the last ball before lunch, he accidentally hit his own wicket. His innings lived fast and died young. This, wrote Cardus, was a crying shame, challenging justice and philosophy. Many who saw the innings cited Victor Trumper. On this occasion, none were accused of blasphemy. And nobody wanted to look at the data afterwards. 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