The ice cold New Jersey Devils are in Nashville tonight to take on one of the hottest teams in the hockey.
The Devils, losers of three straight and six of seven, are certainly catching the Predators at the wrong time as the Preds have been lights out of late. They've won five in a row, seven out of 10 and have picked up at least a point in each game.
Factor in the Devils just traded their leading scorer for draft picks, are resting one of the best goaltenders in hockey and are testing out a bottom-6 forward on their top line and this has potential to get ugly.
LINEUPS Boucher - Henrique - Smith-Pelly Blandisi - Zajac - Palmieri Kalinin - Josefson - Kennedy Farnham - Gionta - Tootoo
Greene - Larsson Moore - Schlemko Merrill - Severson
Note: Warsofsky may also debut.
Kinkaid
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Jarnkrok - Johansen - Neal Forsberg - Ribeiro - Smith Wilson - Fisher - Arvidsson Salomaki - Gausted - Wilson
Josi - Weber Bitetto - Ellis Ekholm - Granberg
Rinne
Notes
1) Devante Smith-Pelly is getting a great opportunity to try and prove he's more than a bottom-6 forward as he'll be on the top line in his Devils debut. I'm skeptical he is but it can't hurt for John Hynes and co. to give him a shot. They're very shallow on the wing organizationally and the games are now meaningless. The Devils may as well find out what they have.
2) The Predators get 52.5% of 5v5 shot attempts while the Devils get 46.8%. The Preds get 53.2% of 5v5 scoring chances while the Devils get 48.2%. If the Devils don't win the special teams battle and/or get excellent goaltending from Keith Kinkaid they probably don't have much of a chance in this one.
The game is at 8 eastern and can be seen on MSG+2 and FS-TN.
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