It’s Game Night in Smashville and it’s time to welcome the bandwagon back to town, our old friends, the Chicago Blackhawks. It is the back end of a home and home where the Hawks won Tuesday night 4-1. This is the beginning of a long home stretch as the Predators play eight of their next nine inside the friendly confines of Bridgestone Arena with a brief jaunt to St. Louis being to only roadie between now and 12/29.
Nashville is 3-5-2 in their last ten, which has them one point behind the Blackhawks in the Central and still in solid playoff position, but it’s time to make some hay and prevent a bad patch from becoming a full blown free fall. Advanced stats geeks will tell you that the Predators #fancystats indicate that they should be doing a lot better in the win column during this bad patch, encouraging because these things tend to even out statistically. Even the eye test will tell you that for the most part… it is probably THE most frustrating thing about the last ten games or so.
In order to break this stretch, the Predators will need to maintain a discipline to stay out of the box tonight, the Hawks power play has been heating up… Pekka Rinne will need to “find another gear… as he indicated in postgame quotes from Tuesday. As of this writing Gabriel Bourque and Mike Fisher remain on IR and there has been no status update on Colin Wilson’s lower body injury that kept him out of Tuesday night’s game.
So what can Pred Nation do? Show up tonight decked out in as much gold as you can lay your hands on. Be as loud as humanly possible… make sure that the Bridgestone Arena magic is maintained. Game time is 7pm.
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Last night’s SlapShot Radio podcast is posted… listen below…
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Random Notes
- All-Star Voting Update - Shea Weber is up to #26 (+1) in overall vote getters, but remains 6th in the Central race for captain of the team. Other Preds… Roman Josi has remains at 50, Pekka Rinne remains at 57, Filip Forsberg down to 84 (-1) and James Neal remains at 98. You can vote up to 10 times a day at the NHL’s All-Star Voting Site
- Pekka Rinne’s road record may be “meh… but his home record is stellar. 8-2-2, 1.98 GAA and a save percentage of .911 in his 12 home starts.
- Petter Granberg has been activated from IR and sent to Milwaukee for conditioning. I will be very interested to see how this waiver wire pick up does…
- Nice preview of the Winter Classic last night as Boston beat Montreal.
- Former Pred Dan Hamhuis had to be helped off the ice last night after taking a puck to the face. No update is available, but Hamhuis was transported to the hospital.
- Edmonton won their 4th straight last night beating the Sharks 4-3 in overtime. San Jose lost Logan Couture in the game to a lower body injury.
- Seven NHL games tonight (all start times CT) – 6:30pm – MTL @ DET, OTT @ TBL, WSH @ FLA. 7pm – PHI @ STL, CHI @ NSH, CBJ @ WPG. 8pm – BUF @ CGY.
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