A good start to the CMA road trip last night as the Nashville Predators overcame a terrible “intent to blow” call in the first period to post a 4-1 victory in Edmonton for their sixth win of the season. You have to give head coach Peter Laviolette credit… the move of putting Matt Cullen up to the second line in his first game of the season made the coach look like a genius. It drove productivity from both the second and third lines, providing a jump start to the Preds offense that was really needed.

The Oilers had their four game win streak stopped with the loss and an oddity is developing… Edmonton is 4-0-0 against the Eastern Conference, 0-5-1 against the Western Conference. The game was much closer than the final score indicated, as the Oilers made a few mistakes that simply just ended up in the back of their net, especially during a second period where Nashville was not on their best game. But the puck was bouncing in Nashville’s direction and the Predators ended up with two points to start off the roadie.

Nashville heads to Calgary for a Friday night tilt against the better-than-advertised Flames, who have started off with 12 points in 11 games thus far this young season. The Flames have gotten outstanding goaltending but the concern has got to be on the injury front. The Flames have lost Mayson Raymond and Matt Stajan over the last few games, hampering their offense.

The Halloween showdown starts at 8pm.

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Random Notes

- I tweeted this last night… it is one or the other… “intent to blow” is the call, or you review the call… it really shouldn’t be both. Complete waste of time.

- And by the way… the Oilers did not have a “goal disallowed” at the beginning of the second period… the puck never crossed the goal line, therefore, there was no goal to be disallowed. The call on the ice was incorrect and overturned.

- Thoughts and prayers to the Howe family as we wish Mr. Hockey a speedy recovery.

- The Rangers John Moore deserved every bit of the 5 games he got for his hit to the head of Erik Haula.

- Big night tonight… ten games in the NHL.

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