A bounce. A break. Just make something good happen. The Nashville Predators got a win last night, dominating the Arizona Coyotes in all aspects of the game, posting a 5-2 win in front of a solid Tuesday night crowd in Music City.
A bounce. A break…
It was almost a mantra, repeated over and over as once again. The Nashville Predators were once again outplaying an opponent and once again just couldn’t seem to get any consistent scoring going… shooting like crazy, hitting post, after post, after post, after post… a total of seven in last night’s contest, before finally cracking through despite an excellent effort from Arizona goaltender Mike Smith.
After owning the play for two periods, out hitting and out shooting Arizona, the Preds found themselves down 2-1, without an injured Mike Fisher who left the game midway through the second period and ripe for another “woulda, coulda, shoulda… night.
Nashville came out with some jam in the third and finally reaped the rewards of some very solid play. Two and half minutes in, Mike Ribiero intercepted a poorly placed pass from the Coyotes Oliver Ekman-Larsson, found himself all alone in the slot in front of Mike Smith and buried it five hole to tie the game. The Preds fired off that goal and 2:16 later, Filip just being Filip… Forsberg took a nice pass from Craig Smith, stickhandled to the high slot and buried a simply filthy wrister to put the Preds up 3-2.
The Preds were feeling it at that point. They had a 21 shot advantage over Arizona and you just knew that one more would salt this one away. That opportunity came at the 11 minute mark of the third as James Neal won a foot race to a loose puck, had a wide open net and clanged it off the post. You could almost hear Pred Nation thinking “oh (expletive deleted)… here we go again.…
But the Preds were undeterred by the sixth (that’s right sixth) of seven total posts hit for the game and continued to press the play. And Forsberg did it again with less than three minutes remaining in the game as Mike Ribiero set up Forsberg’s second of the game and for all intents and purposes, ended the contest. James Neal got the empty netter to seal the 5-2 win.
It was certainly the kind of a win this team needed, certainly one to build on as the Predators finish this three game homestand tomorrow night against Florida, some tickets remain for the 7pm start.
Highlights from nhl.com…
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Random Notes
- James Neal scored his 10th of the season last night.
- Filip Forsberg has been dialing it in over the past few games and he appears to be finding his rhythm. After going almost six weeks between goals, the Preds sniper now has three in his last three games.
- No update on Mike Fisher’s condition, but the drumbeat to make a trade for a center will probably grow louder if he is going to be out for any length of time.
- Colin Wilson was scratched last night due to a lower body injury.
- The Predators ended up with 41 shots on goal last night… that does not include the 7 posts hit. Mike Smith should put in for combat pay after the barrage he faced.
- If you are going to go on a bit of a slide, at least the Preds picked the right time and opponents to do it against. Since 11/20, the Preds have only played one divisional opponent. December has seven divisional games starting with the home and home against Chicago next week.
- Minnesota stopped their slide last night with a huge win over Chicago.
- Somebody break up the Flyers! Philly posted their third consecutive win last night.
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