It’s Game Night in Smashville as the Nashville Predators get the holidays started with three home games in the five days surrounding Thanksgiving. Tonight, the Steven Stamkos-less Tampa Bay Lightning come to town before the team finishes November with a string of four straight divisional games, Dallas on Wednesday… a home and home with the Jets on Friday at home and Saturday in Winnipeg, then to Colorado for a showdown with the Avalanche.
The Central Division is a jumbled mess with six teams within seven points of each other. The Predators are hanging at .500 with a 7-7-1 record… the team does need to fix their road woes as a 2-6-2 mark simply won’t cut it long term. Making some hay with three consecutive home games this week and 12 of their next 17 are inside the friendly confines of Bridgestone Arena, that should assist in catapulting them in the standings.
Tonight’s opponent is dealing with the news of losing Steven Stamkos for 3-4 months after knee surgery last week. Yeah… they’ve dealt with it by reeling off two straight wins and building a four game win streak to boot, all on the road. Tonight is the final game of the Bolts five game road trip. So where are the Lightning getting their scoring? Look no further than Nikita Kucherov, he is on a point plus per game tear with 9 goals and 13 assists, Tyler Johnson (6g) and Alex Killorn (7g) are also stepping up to fill the void. The Lightning are getting excellent goaltending and solid defense… certainly living up to the preseason hype around them.
Nashville comes into this Monday night contest after losing at St. Louis on Saturday night in a closely fought matchup that turned on a couple of head scratching calls and non-calls from the men in stripes… I’m still looking for the call on the cross check Cody Bass received on the play where the Blues took the lead. I don’t think I have ever seen Coach Peter Laviolette that mad on the bench… at least in his time in Nashville.
The Predators took yesterday off, a well-deserved break as the coaching staff figures how to manage the workload during this season’s compressed schedule caused by the World Cup and the CBA mandated five day med season break for each team. While the game load is a little higher, the practice time is rare which does make things a little more difficult on teams that are struggling a bit.
On the injury front, Nashville is now down to one player on IR, that’s Miikka Salomaki… Anthony Bitetto is in Milwaukee on a conditioning assignment. Colin Wilson is listed as day-to-day but not on IR. For Tampa, Stamkos is on IR, Brian Boyle and Anton Stralman are both listed as day-to-day with upper body injuries.
I wouldn’t expect wholesale lineup changes tonight, things really depend on whether Colin Wilson is good to go or not… I do expect Pekka Rinne in net. The ship is righted, one loss does not change that, that being said… Nashville will need to put in a full 60 minute effort tonight against this red hot Lightning team. Puck drop is at 7pm in Smashville, coverage is on Fox Sports Tennessee and the Predators Radio Network flagship, 102.5 the Game.
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Random Notes
- James Neal’s goal scoring streak was snapped on Saturday night, he shares the franchise record with four other players.
- Mike Ribeiro has been on a bit of a roll lately, taking the shot when previously he would pass, scoring in his past two games.
- Tonight is Filip Forsberg’s 200th career NHL game. Ryan Ellis hits 300 on Wednesday night.
- Nashville hosted the 7th Annual USA Hockey Sled Classic over the weekend at Ford Ice Center, over 300 athletes participated in the event.
- The Lightning have a chance to do something they have never done before, sweep a five-game road trip for the first time in franchise history.
- The holiday week gets going with seven games in the NHL today, all times central – 6pm – CGY @ BUF, NYR @ PITY, COL @ CBJ. 7pm TBL @ NSH. 7:30pm – MIN @ DAL. 8pm – CHI @ EDM. 9:30pm NJD @ SJS.
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