The road has become a friend of the Nashville Predators, surviving a 3-on-3 overtime at Bell Centre to get to the shootout and winning on a redemption goal from Craig Smith in the final round to give the Preds a 2-1 win over the host Montreal Canadiens. Quite frankly, if it wasn’t for an outstanding game from Habs rookie goaltender Mike Condon, the game wouldn’t have gotten past the first period.
It was the first shootout win for Nashville since October 20. All I gotta say is, thank heavens there is no 3-on-3 or shootout in the playoffs.
I mentioned a redemption goal from Craig Smith… sometimes I think that if it weren’t for bad luck, Smith would have no luck at all as his history has shown. He added to that storyline with a bizarre opportunity late in overtime as he took a pass from Mike Ribeiro and attempted to stuff it home from close range. At first I thought… hell everyone thought that Condon made an incredible save until the super slow mo replays showed that Smith, incredibly, actually knocked his own shot out of harms way.
Typical overtime for Nashville, who has gone 1-10 in 3-on-3 so far this season… but 3-1 in shootouts.
But Smith got an immediate chance to make things right and boy did he deliver, showing incredible patience, making Condon make the first move and he made the most of his chance, roofing it to seal the win for Nashville.
No time to celebrate as the Predators head to the second half of a Canadian back-to-back, visiting the Toronto Maple Leafs as they try and extend their franchise record road point streak to nine and overall point streak to seven. The Maple Leafs are in fire sale mode, dropping the puck on silly season as the trade deadline looms, They moved Roman Polak and Nick Spaling to San Jose for Raffi Torres and a couple of second round picks, then moved Shawn Matthais for Colin Smith and a 4th round pick in this year’s draft.
To fill the holes created in the lineup, Toronto called up blueliner Stuart Percy and forward (and former Pred Prospect) Brendan Leipsic for tonight’s game from the AHL.
There is a pretty good chance that Carter Hutton starts tonight putting his 6-2-2 season record on the line. Game time is 6:30pm CST and coverage is on 102.5 the Game 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 67 points, leading Colorado by one point with two games in hand over the Avalanche. Nashville leads Minnesota by 3 points in the division, but the Wild have a game in hand on the Preds. The Predators are in the first wild card slot, leading Colorado by 1 point, Minnesota by 3 points, Arizona by 7 points and Vancouver by 9 points.
- Per SportsClubStats.com, the Predators playoff chances continue to rise, standing at 74.7% this morning.
- The Predators announced the signing of Colton Sissons to a 3 year contract extension. Expect to see him centering to 4th line next season.
- Since Pekka Rinne has returned after the two game break a week ago he has posted a .966 save percentage and a 0.97 GAA. (Stick tap to Adam Vingan for this nugget)
- Elliotte Friedman floated the idea about a Colin Wilson for Scott Hartnell trade with Columbus on NHL Network yesterday… that’s been out there for a while… it almost happened as part of the Jones/Johansen trade.
- Bad news for St. Louis as Blues goaltender Brian Elliott was injured in their loss to San Jose last night. Looks like it is Jake Allen’s net for the foreseeable future.
- Sellers and buyers are being determined and a few familiar names are being bandied about (besides Hartnell) including former Pred Dan Hamhuis and a host of Edmonton Oilers.
- Nine games in the NHL tonight, all times central – 6pm – NYR @ NJD, PHI @ CAR. 6:30pm – NSH @ TOR, CBJ @ DET, ARI @ TBL. 7pm – NYI @ MIN, DAL @ WPG. 8pm – OTT @ EDM. 9:30pm – CGY @ LAK.
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