Nashville Predators (41-29-12) at Chicago Blackhawks (50-23-9) 7PM Central NBCSN/FS Tennessee
GOALIES: Pekka Rinne/Nashville Corey Crawford/Chicago
SEASON SERIES: 4-1 Chicago
ANALYSIS: The Blackhawks have been here before, as have the Predators.
Some are predicting a fairly easy series win for Chicago, or a tougher, longer Chicago win. And a few outliers have the Preds winning.
Predictions don't win series however. This morning and when the puck drops tonight, each team has an equal chance.
I've taken the Hawks in 6, and without rehashing the reasons why, I think it's going to be a tough series because of the matchup and the styles the two teams play.
Hawk fans (and many Hawk observers) do tend to diminish how tough playoff series wins can be in hindsight, forgetting the challenges the Hawks overcame from the Preds in years past—or, say, Detroit in 2013 and Anaheim in 2015.
What's more important is that the Hawks themselves don't take that for granted, which leads to:
KEY #1:
Chicago must show up ready to play at top speed for 60 minutes.
Nashville got the drop on the Hawks in 2015 because they outworked and outskated the Hawks, eventually chasing Corey Crawford and setting up Scott Darling for a series-saving star turn, before Chicago got their wakeup call.
This Nashville team WILL do the same if the Hawks just show up and throw their sticks on the ice.
And Key #1 leads to . .
KEY #2:
Stay out of the penalty box.
Nashville is very good on the power play, and while the Hawks are better now on the penalty kill than they were most of the season, it is playing with fire to take lazy stick penalties or too many men.
KEY #3:
Will the better goalie please stand up.
Pekka Rinne's stature has diminished over the last couple of years while Corey Crawford's has somewhat ascended. One has the skins on the wall, the other doesn't. But either is capable of stealing playoff series. Or stinking it up.
KEY #4:
Matchups.
The Hawks have 6 players who scored 20 or more goals this season, Nashville has 3. But while that does reflect more potency over multiple lines, it is also taken out of context.
The Ryan Johansen line with Viktor Arvidsson is the offensive engine of the Preds. You can't just dismiss the Preds' other lines, but if you stop their big stars, it's much slimmer pickings for the Preds.
For me, the big thing to watch tonight is this: who does Joel Quenneville send out against the Preds' top line.
I believe he is going to try Marcus Kruger's line (with Marian Hossa and Ryan Hartman). If he does, he's not trying to outscore that line (although Hossa and Hartman had 26 and 18 goals respectively this year)—he's trying to keep that line pinned in its own end—a skill that the relatively new Chicago third line has shown through the last handful of games. And bear in mind, Kruger, Andrew Shaw and Andrew Desjardins did the exactly that against as good or arguably better forwards all the way through the playoffs in 2015.
If that line slows down or frustrates the Johansen line, it puts a lot more pressure on Peter LaViolette. If it doesn't, Quenneville can throw Jonathan Toews line against Johansen—forcing that line to defend more.
The relative blue line corps are very good and pretty evenly matched, either teams' starting goalie is good enough, it's depth at forward (and linemaking options for Quenneville) where Chicago has an edge in this series.
But it's best of 7.
I'll recap Game 1 tomorrow.
JJ