Well that was a fun Monday night at Bridgestone Arena. A highly satisfying 4-1 victory over the Dallas Stars will do that for a Predator fan. It wasn’t the best hockey I’ve ever seen, disjointed, no real flow, but a win is a win. Nashville won the way it always needs to, firing the offense off of the blueline, and this is where the much-improved play of carter Hutton comes into play.
Quote all the fancy stats you want, but this team needs better than average netminding to win games. Good goaltending allows the defense to activate with more confidence, more trust. In two of the last three Predator games, you have seen that. Carter Hutton has finally shown what he can do at this level, solid, sound goaltending that has allowed Nashville’s defensemen to step up into the play, with less worry about what happens after. It’s not something that can be statistically proven, but hockey is not a game driven by statistics. It’s a game of emotion and heart.
Hutton made two excellent saves in the first minute and a half of the game, sending a message to his team as Nashville came out with some jump, peppering Dallas goaltender Kari Lehtonen and quite honestly, getting a couple of bad breaks… a simply horrendous goaltender interference call that negated a goal and directly led to Dallas’ only score and a second waived off goal that was a questionable call at best. You could feel the frustration building… a palpable “here we go again… feeling permeating the arena.
The resilient Predators kept on working, finally being rewarded as Nick Spaling cracked Lehtonen on a rebound to draw the game even. The Predators continued to take over the period, keeping the play in Dallas’ end until A Shea Weber wrister found the back of the net to put the Preds up to stay before the period ended… and they kept on working, lunch bucket hockey at it’s best. Roman Josi put the Preds up two with a sweet little snap shot with less than a minute to go in the second (giving everyone there a free one day pass at Planet Fitness) and Mike Fisher sent a joyous Pred Nation home happy, scoring on a really nice setup from Colin Wilson for the Frosty goal.
The win allowed Nashville to leap frog Dallas in the Central Division standings and now has the team eight points back of Minnesota and Vancouver (who just happens to be Thursday night’s opponent at Rogers Arena) for the final wild card spot in the west.
Here are your highlights from last night… ----------------------------------
Baseball analyst Peter Gammons sent this tweet out on Sunday.
Calgary and Vancouver last night reiterated why the NHL is a minor sport
— Peter Gammons (@pgammo) January 19, 2014Oh… and one last thing… when was the last time 105,000 people showed up for a regular season baseball game?
Just sayin’
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Random Notes
- Is this the year that Shea Weber finally gets his due and wins the Norris? We will be following this race closely as Weber is quite possibly having his best year. You have to wonder how Olympic performance will skew the awards race… yes, I know they don’t count in the trophy race but let’s face it… you can’t un-see something and an excellent performance won’t hurt.
- Nice scrap between Antoine Roussel and Kevin Klein last night. Who knew Klein could fight like that? As our video director Sleepy Ron put it on Twitter last night, …Klein was feeding him fists like it was the dinner special in the Patron Platinum Club.…
- With 13 home games remaining in the season (is it really only January 21?) due to the Olympic Break, Nashville is posting attendance numbers that has the team at 96.1% capacity so far. Given the inconsistent performance of the team on the ice and a few stretches on four home games in six days those are respectable results.
- Somebody won $15,000 last night in the Predator’s Foundation Golden Giveaway. If you bought a ticket and want to check if you are that winner… The ticket number and instructions for claiming your prize are here.
- Predators alumni Bob Boughner, Mark Mowers and Blake Geoffrion were on hand last night to sign some autographs and get out into the community. Props to Stu Grimson for his work in getting these alumni efforts together.
- OK… time to go here. Completely agree with the punishment meted out by the NHL on John Tortorella. It’s the right amount of time and it sends a clear message. The $25k fine for Flames coach Bob Hartley also makes sense to me. Especially given the reporting on Flames’ right wing Kevin Westgarth being sent out there to “make something happen.… Maybe the best way to fix this is to suspend coaches who allow this situation to happen. A fight in the first minute of a period draws the rain… it may stop the stupidity. Now, how you stop a coach from being really silly and trying to invade the opponent’s locker room between periods? Well… for that I have no solution, because in the immortal words of Ron White, you can’t fix stupid.
- Reason number 327 why I prefer hockey – Richard Sherman
- Spent some time chatting with Predators Director of Player development Scotty Nichol last night. He had some very positive things to say about players in the Nashville pipeline.
- Nice moment a last night’s game Chip Esten (Deacon from ABC’s Nashville) was playing the band stage with Small Time Rock Stars and was able to recognize his son on the ice as a member of the state champion Brentwood High School Cross Country team.
- Ten games tonight – 6pm starts – Panthers @ Sabres, Blues @ Devils, Islanders @ Rangers, Hurricanes @ Flyers, Senators @ Capitals, Kings @ Blue Jackets. 7pm start – Wild @ Stars. 8pm start – Maple Leafs @ Avalanche. 8:30pm start – Canucks @ Oilers. 9pm start – Jets @ Ducks.
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