The Nashville Predators continue their last extended road trip of the season tonight in Winnipeg, after dispatching the Colorado Avalanche on Saturday afternoon, the team returned home post-game and travelled to Manitoba yesterday. Nashville continues their four game Canadian swing tomorrow night in Calgary, Saturday night in Vancouver and next Monday in Edmonton before finishing the regular season with 8 of their last 12 inside the friendly confines of Bridgestone Arena.
Tonight is the last Central Division game for the Preds for a little while as the next eight are outside the division. Winnipeg is playing out the string of another disappointing season and are mired in a home streak of losing seven of their past eight games at MTS Centre and only three wins at home in their last fifteen. The Jets are offensively challenged as Blake Wheelr and Nikolaj Ehlers are out of the lineup due to injury, the trade of Andrew Ladd didn’t help there… but Mark Scheifele has done everything he can to fill the void. The Jets’ center was named NHL Second Star of the Week last week and has potted six goals in the Jets’ last three games.
Both coaches are playing their cards pretty close to the vest today as neither has named a starter for tonight’s game as of this writing. The Predators are on the front end of a back-to-back so you could see either Carter Hutton or Pekka Rinne between the pipes for Nashville.
Winnipeg will have to play a tight checking game and hope to keep the score close, Nashville will want to dictate the pace early and take the boisterous MTS Centre crowd out of the game as soon as possible if they want to add to their franchise record 12 game point streak.
On the injury front, besides the IR list of Gabriel Bourque and Eric Nystrom, Paul Gaustad will not go tonight. Colton Sissons has been called up from Milwaukee and will center the fourth line. The Jets get Jacob Trouba back in the lineup but still list Mark Stuart and Grant Clitome on IR.
This game completes the season series for these two teams and is the rubber game as both teams have won twice. Game time is 7pm with coverage on 102.5 the Game, the Predators Radio Network and Fox Sports Tennessee.
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Random Notes
- “Where They Stand… – Entering tonight’s play, the Nashville Predators are 4th in the Central Division with 73 points, trailing 3rd Place St. Louis by 7 points with a game in hand and 2nd place Dallas / 1st place Chicago by 9 points with a game in hand on each. The Preds lead Minnesota and Colorado by six points with a game in hand on the Wild and two games in hand on the Avalanche in the division. The Predators are in the first wild card slot, leading Minnesota and Colorado.
- Per SportsClubStats.com, the Predators playoff chances stand at 98.6% heading into tonight’s play.
- Congratulations to the Ravenwood Raptors on capturing their 4th Predators Cup in the last seven seasons. They defeated Montgomery Bell Academy 3-1 last night for the Tennessee State High School Hockey Championship. The Raptors’ head coach is former Nashville Predators defenseman Dan Keczmer.
- The 2016 Heritage Classic will be in Winnipeg… they will be holding it in late October.
- The fall of the Canadian dollar seems to have put a crimp into the NHL’s plan to expand to Quebec City according to an article in today’s Winnipeg Sun.
- Well, Jonathan Drouin has decided that Tampa GM Steve Yzerman is serious and has reported to play in the AHL. Someone finally was able to talk some sense into the kid.
- Eight games in the NHL tonight, all times central – 6pm – NYR @ BUF, OTT @ CAR, DRW @ CBJ. 6:30pm – PIT @ NYI, DAL @ MTL, BOS @ TBL. 7pm – NSH @ WPG. 8pm – SJS @ EDM. ------------------------------------
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