The Nashville Predators took advantage of a backup goaltender and some dead legs from a western Canada trip to take a come-from-behind 3-2 victory over the Boston Bruins at TD Garden last night. Finally, the Predators showed the resilience Pred Nation has been used to seeing from this team, coming from behind twice in the win.
The first recovery came from Roman Josi, scoring a power play goal late in the first period to tie things up. Josi played a nice little game of catch with Mike Ribiero and picked his corner nicely on the return feed to knot the game heading into the room. The second period saw the Predators rise to the challenge thrown down by Boston as the B’s tried to intimidate Nashville, but both Roman JOsi and Eric Nystrom accepted the invitations to throw down… Josi getting the first fighting major o his NHL career.
Then things got weird… James Neal gets high–sticked for the second time of the game… and instead of calling the obvious penalty, referee Tim Peel (in a video you can see anywhere on YouTube) curses out Neal and send him to the box for embellishment. Hmmm… I wonder if the ref thought Neal had a razor blade in his glove that caused the cut he sustained on the play. Ridiculous call, both on the non-call and the call made. And of course… after every bad call… comes the power play goal, putting Boston in the lead 2-1.
Now, for the past three weeks or so, the Preds may have spiraled into a messy lack of discipline, instead… they tightened it up, along with the defense and allowed Boston to take the next five penalties including a serious Mary Kay call on Brad Marchand at 13:44. But it was the first penalty that the Preds took advantage of as Roman Josi scored his second power play goal of the game and provided the springboard for the Predators to seize the momentum and turn the game solidly in their favor.
Finally, hard work and resilience paid off as Viktor Arvidsson, playing like a man possessed since his game misconduct, scored his third of the year on a move that has Boston goaltender Jonas Gustavsson still looking for his jock… that was the dagger as Boston just couldn’t overcome the penalties and frankly, solve a very, very good performance from Carter Hutton.
Hutton has taken a lot of grief from a very vocal section of Predators fans, but he has finally settled into the role of backup, posting a 3-1 record so far this season. Hutton rounding into form should help this team as I would expect him to get another start or two in December.
Highlights from NHL.com…
A satisfying win to be sure, but there is no time to savor it as the team is back in action tonight for a huge Central Division matchup in the Windy City. Chicago, Nashville, St. Louis and Minnesota are all battling for position behind Dallas in the Central. The Blackhawks have been better over the last ten games, but not much. They are riding the record setting 23 game scoring streak from Patrick Kane and have survived a rough start to the season as a team. They are also taking advantage of their activated defense as Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook have combined for 13 points the Hawks last six games.
The Blackhawks will be a little thin defensively as Trevor Dailey will not play, he is listed as day-to-day with an upper-body injury. Expect Corey Crawford in net. The Predators injury situation has stabilized, Mike Fisher and Gabriel Bourque remain on IR.
Should be a good one tonight… if you can, come on out and join us at the Smyrna Buffalo Wild Wings, I will be hosting the official Preds watch party there tonight… we will get going at 7pm, game time is 7:30pm with coverage on Fox Sports Tennessee and flagship of the Predators Radio Network, 102.5 the Game.
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Random Notes
- All-Star Voting Update - Shea Weber remains #27 in overall vote getters which is good for 6th in the Central race for captain of the team. Other Preds… Roman Josi has moved up to 50 (+1), Pekka Rinne has dropped to 57 (-2), Filip Forsberg down to 83 (-1) and James Neal at 98. You can vote up to 10 times a day at the NHL’s All-Star Voting Site
- The leaders for captain of the specific divisions, ARI’s John Scott for the Pacific, FLA’s Jaromir Jagr for the Atlantic, WSH Alex Ovechkin for the Metro and CHI’s Patrick Kane for the Central.
- Roman Josi was named second star of the night by NHL.com for his two goal performance including a pretty fair Bobby Orr channeling on his second.
- Big divisional win for the Av’s last night, although going to overtime blunted it a bit.
- Word breaking that the Coyotes are “actively researching plans for a new home… according to team co- owner Anthony Leblanc. They are looking in both downtown Phoenix and in the East Valley, both MUCH better locations to accommodate the team’s fanbase. I’m glad they are doing this… if Glendale wants to pull silly shenanigans like they did over the summer, let them end up with an empty arena.
- The interesting piece of this Coyotes story is the negotiations that have been happening with Arizona State University… a shared facility between the new NCAA D1 program there and the NHL would be a solid and creative solution.
- Nine NHL games tonight (all start times CT) – 6pm – NYI @ PHI, LAK @ CBJ. 6:30pm – DET @ WSH, NJD @ TML, OTT @ FLA. 7pm – ARI @ STL. 7:30pm – NSH @ CHI, CAR @ DAL. 8pm – SJS @ CGY.
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