Let's leave "the sky is falling" stuff to Chicken Little for a moment.

Take a deep breath.

Inhale: The Nashville Predators' recent stretch of bad-stench hockey was no stroke of bad luck. It cost the team and its staff a night in Las Vegas to see U2.

Exhale: That stretch was no different than the type just about every team and every player in every sport goes through every season.

But in large part because athletes and coaches live so in the moment, every bad stretch feels like the first bad stretch or the worst bad stretch. When you're in a bad moment, the good moments can seem so far away.

"It's a tough position to get out of," Predators alternate captain Ryan O'Reilly said. "When things aren't going well, it takes more from everyone. When things are rolling and going well, it's easier to hold momentum.

"You have to work twice as hard and do a lot more things to get out of it. That's usually the way it goes."

Successes and failures

O'Reilly would know.

The 33-year-old center is in his 15th season. He has been in the NHL since he was 18 years old. He has won a Stanley Cup. His teams have missed the playoffs seven times.

Of the 1,122 NHL games O'Reilly has played, 75 have been of the most important variety — the postseason variety. That's 0.067%.

Winning isn't easy. Failure is an ingredient found in most success.

Losing 9-2, the way the Predators did against the Dallas Stars last week, isn't easy, either. It prompted coach Andrew Brunette to suggest that, after a less-than-optimal three games coming out of the All-Star break, his players' minds were more on vacation (i.e., U2) than hockey.

It prompted some on social media to start calling for Brunette's job and Trotz's job way too soon into their first year on the job.

Eras take years to build, not months.

'You never want to get too low'

Going into Thursday's game against the Los Angeles Kings, the Predators' all-time regular-season record is 968-743-60-180. Twice in those 1,851 games — 0.001% — has Nashville allowed nine goals in a game, which is the franchise high.

The sky wasn't falling. It just felt like it to the Predators, who turned around and won the first two games of their current five-game road trip.

In fact, an argument can be made that the opposite is true.

The Predators trail the St. Louis Blues by 0.006% points for the second Western Conference wild-card spot, and might be overachieving relative to most expectations.

"You never want to get too low where you let it affect your game, confidence-wise," alternate captain Ryan McDonagh said. "Realize all the things that make you a good hockey player, a valuable part of this team — reset those thoughts in your head."

The 34-year-old should know. He's in his 14th season. He has won two Stanley Cups.

Know pain, know gain

Trotz tried to temper expectations before the season began, and again shortly after.

"There could be some pain," he said in late November. "I was trying to be transparent with our fans. We could be not so good or we could be sneaky good. I just don't know."

So far, the Predators are somewhere in between, a place they so badly are trying to escape. But the middle is different now because there are new sheriffs in town trying to put their fingerprints on the walls.

That process is in its infancy. The arrow already seems to be pointing up.

Making the playoffs won't change that. Neither will missing the playoffs.

Expectations can be fleeting. Retooling can be tricky. Patience is a virtue.

The sky isn't falling.

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This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: No need to panic: Nashville Predators' future is just beginning