Given scalars
a_n (\neq 0)
and
b_n
,
n \geq 0
, the tridiagonal kernel or band kernel with bandwidth
1
is the positive definite kernel
k
on the open unit disc
\mathbb{D}
defined by
k(z, w) = \sum_{n=0}^\infty \big((a_n + b_n z) z^n\big) \big((\bar{a}_n + \bar{b}_n \bar{w}) \bar{w}^n \big) \quad (z, w \in \mathbb{D}).
This defines a reproducing kernel Hilbert space
\mathcal{H}_k
(known as tridiagonal space) of analytic functions on
\mathbb{D}
with
\{(a_n + b_nz) z^n\}_{n=0}^\infty
as an orthonormal basis. We consider shift operators
M_z
on
\mathcal{H}_k
and prove that
M_z
is left-invertible if and only if
\{|{a_n}/{a_{n+1}}|\}_{n\geq 0}
is bounded away from zero. We find that, unlike the case of weighted shifts, Shimorin models for left-invertible operators fail to bring to the foreground the tridiagonal structure of shifts. In fact, the tridiagonal structure of a kernel
k
, as above, is preserved under Shimorin models if and only if
b_0=0
or that
M_z
is a weighted shift. We prove concrete classification results concerning invariance of tridiagonality of kernels, Shimorin models, and positive operators. We also develop a computational approach to Aluthge transforms of shifts. Curiously, in contrast to direct kernel space techniques, often Shimorin models fail to yield tridiagonal Aluthge transforms of shifts defined on tridiagonal spaces.