updated 3:27 p.m. ET Feb. 16, 2007

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Take a look at the NHL standings. The team at the top hasn't been perennial President's Trophy winner Detroit, or even the defending Stanley Cup champion Carolina Hurricanes.

No, it's the Nashville Predators.

The expansion franchise best known for trying to survive in a Southern market, and which has never won a playoff series, all of a sudden is focusing on a run for the Stanley Cup.

The Predators headed into the weekend leading the NHL with 79 points following a 4-2 win Thursday night over Toronto. That's one point more than Buffalo, and three more than Central Division rival Detroit.

Six of their next seven games are at home, where they have won eight straight and are 20-3-3. And these Predators know it's where they finish that matters most.

"Nobody ever remembers three quarters of a way to the end of the season,'' general manager David Poile said.

"It's driven by your record and what you do in the playoffs. We know we're good enough we're going to be making the playoffs and realistically for the first time in our franchise, we have a chance to compete for the Stanley Cup. Now we have to continue that process and see what happens.''

The Predators debuted in 1998 with a five-year plan to be competitive, and never wavered. They didn't reach the playoffs until year six, but have been in the postseason the last two seasons and were a No. 4 seed in 2006. They still have the same owner in Craig Leipold, the same general manager (Poile) and coach in Barry Trotz.

Frugal in the early years, they built through the draft, picked up cheap talent through trades and relied on speed and hard work to survive.

They wound up building around goaltender Tomas Vokoun, their lone player left from the 1998 expansion draft. Key defenseman Marek Zidlicky came when they traded away their first goalie, Mike Dunham. Nine current Predators were the club's draft picks, with more stashed away at their AHL affiliate in Milwaukee.

Trotz owns the record for most games coached with an expansion franchise, even though he wondered if he'd survive the first season. He said the key was staying with the plan.

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"The coaching staff, the management team, the ownership, we had to build this team a certain way through the draft. We had to be patient. We had to sign the right guys when we had an opportunity to. We sort of went down that path,'' he said.

The biggest key to the Predators' current success is the NHL's new labor agreement, a deal with revenue sharing giving competitive hope to small-market teams. Leipold helped negotiate that deal, and wasted little time spending money after the lockout ended.

He shocked much of Canada by signing Paul Kariya to a two-year, $9 million deal. After San Jose pushed them around with Patrick Marleau and Joe Thornton in a 4-1 playoff series loss last April, the Predators addressed that weakness by signing center Jason Arnott to a five-year deal and adding J.P. Dumont after Buffalo let him go.

"The new CBA has been a Godsend for us in terms of allowing us to be competitive,'' Poile said. "Honestly, the signing of free agents really wasn't on our radar.''

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