An ugly 6-1 defeat at the hands of the Minnesota Wild put to rest the Nashville Predators' winning streak at six games Thursday night.

That it occurred with John Hynes, the man the Predators fired in late May, behind the Wild bench added to the agony.

It was quick. It was cruel. It was inevitable.

Hockey seasons aren't beauty pageants. One bad loss does not a season make. Same for a six-game winning streak. Or a six-game losing streak.

"If you can play six really good games out of seven during the course of a hockey season, you're pretty happy," said first-year Predators coach Andrew Brunette, the man who replaced Hynes. "The intensity level that we need to get to wasn't there (Thursday) night. We're in a grind. The season, there's going to be nights like that."

Regarding the reaction to the poor performance, Brunette's solution was simple: Regroup, re-energize and refocus.

Looking for an identity

Which brings us to Saturday afternoon, when another former Predators coach came to town and beat his former team 4-3.

This time it was Peter Laviolette.

His New York Rangers, the best team in the NHL, didn't play better than their competitors Saturday afternoon. They scored more goals, though, which is the ultimate goal.

The Predators gained something from the loss — important when you're trying to figure out who and what you are.

"Oh, gosh," center Ryan O'Reilly said. "Just all the new pieces, whether it's our coaching staff, players like myself. You can see to start the year it took a while to find a rhythm and where we fit and what goes on."

Are you the team that just won six in a row? Are you the team that lost four in a row and five out of six before that?

The truth lies somewhere in between for a team that had the franchise's worst start to a season since 2003.

Growing pains are to be expected

The truth is this team, with its new coach, its (somewhat) new general manager, its many young players, is way more fun to watch than previous incarnations. It isn't going to be a pushover or pushed around.

They've beaten the Rangers. They've beaten the Colorado Avalanche. Both are atop their divisions. They lost by one to another division leader, the Boston Bruins.

They've done so without the usually elite goaltending of Juuse Saros, who has struggled. He was pulled Thursday, the second time in this young season that has happened.

"Now we have more of an identity," O'Reilly said after Saturday's loss. "We know what it looks like when we do things well and how good we can be."

With a tick under 30% of the season gone, the Predators are 11-12-0.

They haven't always been pretty. They've been pretty much mediocre by won-lost measurements. But better, perhaps, than many might have expected.

General manager Barry Trotz warned there "could be some pain."

Without it, there's no gain.

Kevin Lankinen: 'We didn't shiver or shake'

Ryan McDonagh, Jeremy Lauzon, Yakov Trenin and O'Reilly skated in unison toward the bench Saturday, slowly and with heads hung in apparent shame.

Their exit occurred 9 minutes, 11 seconds into the second period, after Vincent Trocheck evened the score 3-3 with a power-play goal.

The goal came 19 seconds after Chris Kreider pulled the visitors within one.

Suddenly O'Reilly's 11th goal of the season, which put the Predators ahead 1-0 in the first, was but a distant memory.

ESTES: Smashville has a new villain to root against: The Minnesota Wild's John Hynes

Same with Roman Josi's snipe that put Nashville up 2-0.

Not to mention Colton Sissons' shorthanded goal, his third of the season, almost seven minutes after the Rangers pulled within 2-1.

The Predators, though, didn't fold.

"We didn't shiver or shake," said backup goalie Kevin Lankinen, who stopped 23 of the 27 shots he faced. "We probably outplayed the best team in the league right now.

"The result wasn't there, but I'm really proud of the guys."

Pride alone won't win games. But you can't win games without it.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Nashville Predators hanging with best of NHL while still growing