I asked the question “rest or rust” in yesterday’s column, we got our answer early as the Nashville Predators hung a seven spot on Vancouver last night in a 7-1 blowout. The Predators unleashed a torrent of shots and an avalanche of goals as the puck luck that was so absent last Friday night found this team.
One of the more dominating performances from Nashville so far this season saw six different scorers and PK Subban post two bizarre goals. The first one a little blooper that went over goaltender Anders Nilsson’s shoulder… the second one a center ice blast that looked to be going wide, until Nilsson decided to try and glove it… the shot ticked off the netminder’s trapper and went in. The return of Ryan Johansen and Scott Hartnell certainly didn’t hurt this team as well. Johansen posted two assists including a sweet dish to Viktor Arvidsson on a shorthanded chance that Arvy buried toward the end of the first period.
In this observer’s mind, Johansen had the quote of the night post-game… “They came back against us last time, so we wanted to make sure we finished them off."
Let the choir say “amen!”
Things got a little feisty right after Calle Jarnkrok’s goal made it 7-1. Jake Virtanen decided to follow up his second period hi-sticking on Alexei Emelin with another cheap shot that left Emelin stunned on the ice and drew retributions from Subban and Hartnell.
Here are the highlights…
Time to move on to Edmonton tonight for the second game of this rapid fire three games in four nights Western Canada swing. This is the first meeting of these two preseason prognostication darlings. Nashville has been living up to the preseason hype, especially since the acquisition of Kyle Turris… Edmonton, not so much. But the Oilers fortunes appears to have turned as they coming off of a road trip that saw the Edmonton offense explode for 13 goals in two wins.
A lot of the blame has been unfairly directed at the goaltending, but this Oiler team has been sloppy defensively and overall has struggled to score goals. Those issues appear to be going away. The Predators on the other hand, well… after a rest period that saw Pekka Rinne rejuvenate and two key forwards heal… well the only player missing right now is Ryan Ellis.
And he is on this trip, practicing with the team in preparation for his return sometime over the Christmas holiday. Good news for Pred Nation to be sure, bad news for the rest of the league.
Tonight’s game at Rogers Place will be another tough test for these Predators, against a team finding its confidence and figuring out that they are better than they have been playing. We know that Edmonton will go with Laurent Brossoit between the pipes… Nashville… well, let’s talk about that.
On last night’s SlapShot Radio, I mentioned that this is an obvious start for Juuse Saros, but JP Dumont brought up an interesting point… after the rest that Rinne has seen over the past nine days, he would be OK with starting him back-to-back, then give Saros the start in Calgary… especially given Rinne’s record over the Oilers. It’s an interesting question that won’t get answered until we see who leads the team out for warm-ups tonight.
The injury situation for Nashville is Ryan Ellis on IR… Alexei Emelin look shook up after the shot he took in the third period last night but no word on his status as I write this. For the Oilers, former UAH goaltender Cam Talbot is on IR as is Adam Larsson. Andrej Sekera is out with a knee injury… three major pieces of this Oiler team and two stout cogs in their blueline are on the sideline.
Game time is 8pm as the Predators move from Pacific time to Mountain… another part of the challenge of this back-to-back. Pregame starts at 7pm on 102.5 the Game, 7:30pm on Fox Sports Tennessee.
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Last night’s SlapShot Radio
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