The date you circled way back in early summer has arrived. It’s time for Nashville to host Montreal and the return of Shea Weber. Tonight is going to be a love fest for the former Nashville captain, at least in pregame and the first period, but the return doesn’t stop at one of the most popular players to ever wear Nashville colors. The second return tonight won’t be greeted with much warmth at all, this is much more of a heel turn…
The Prodigal Pred, Alexander Radulov plays his first game in Nashville since his final immature acts back in 2012, acts that caused a major distraction in the second round of the playoffs by partying his butt off and missing curfew the night before a crucial playoff game in Arizona. His suspension for his poor choices had real consequences for a Predators team that saw a path through to the Western Conference Finals that year. I can almost guarantee that Radulov’s welcome won’t be a pleasant one. He does seem to have grown up a bit and is performing well for Montreal, 8 goals and 18 assists so far this season… but whenever anyone thinks of Radulov in Pred Nation it is always with a feeling of “what might have been.…
Turning the attention to the ice… Now that the Predators seem to have corrected their road play, some tending to the home fires is required. Nashville, after being almost unbeatable at home for the first two month of the season has gone inexplicably cold, going 2-4-3 in the month of December and are currently on a five game home losing streak. Highly unusual for this team… but it does kinda fit in to the narrative for a truly strange season so far.
The key for Nashville seems to be scoring first… they are 10-0-3 when scoring first which makes them 6-14-3 when they don’t… stats don’t get much clearer than that. The other key, sound play on the blueline, limiting the bad giveaways and clearing any stray rebounds… when they do that, they win.
After an absolutely torrid start to the season… the Habs are now looking to avoid a six game losing streak dating back to 12/22 and going 2-3-4 since their 10-1 dismantling of the Colorado Avalanche back on 12/10. The key to Montreal is always in net… solve Carey Price and you win… simple as that… yeah… simple. Price is the most dominant goaltender in the game right now and he is the reason the team is still picking up points over this last nine and still leading the Atlantic Division by a comfortable margin.
Offensively, besides Radulov, the Canadiens are led by the usual cast of characters, names like Pachioretty, Galchenyuk (currently on IR) and Markov… and don’t forget about Weber… he has 9 goals and 12 assists so far and leads the league in power play goals.
Game time is 7pm, coverage on Fox Sports Tennessee and 102.5 the Game… radio pregame starts at 6pm, TV pregame at 6:30pm. Very limited tickets remain for this one…
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Random Notes
- ICYMI – The Predators placed Reid Boucher on waivers and the New Jersey Devils grabbed him back.
- With all of the recent moves, the Predators are at the league minimum 20 players on the active roster… I won’t be surprised if Anthony Bitetto is activated today and word from Milwaukee is that Harry Zolneirchik may be headed to Nashville.
- The Montreal media crush was evident at yesterday’s practice at Ford Ice Center. Another great crowd showed up to watch the practice and quite a few stuck around to watch the Winter Classic.
- Montreal is in the middle of a seven game road trip… they are in Dallas tomorrow before finishing the trip in Toronto on Saturday.
- A good Winter Classic yesterday, not as good as the Centennial Classic on Sunday, but a good game… Chicago is now at 1-4 in outdoor games.
- Seven games in the NHL tonight, all times CST – 6pm – NJD @ CAR, BUF @ NYR, TOR @ WSH, EDM @ CBJ. 6:30pm – WPG @ TBL. 7pm – MTL @ NSH. 9pm – LAK @ SJS.
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