Not trying to spook you on Halloween but... Five road games... five losses... that's the bottom line.

The Nashville Predators have been outscored 21-3 on the road so far this year... they have only one power play goal (scored last night)... they've made ordinary goalies look incredible, and last night they made Miikka Kiprosoff look even better than the all-world goalie he is.

The road problems have moved on from effort, that's a positive I guess, now we're talking about finishing. The Predators outshot the Flames in the second and third periods and outchanced the Flames throughout the game but could not finish enough of those chances.

It's tempting to blame Chris Mason... it would also be silly to lay it all at his feet. The Nashville netminder has a serious case of non-support from his teammates. They have given him exactly two goals in his past four starts. While Mason will try to take the blame himself, he is not getting the help he needs offensively or defensively. Now, that being said... he is not consistantly delivering. A save percentage of .870 just doesn't cut it.

The big names on this team have disappeared on the road... Jason Arnott, JP Dumont, Radek Bonk, Martin Erat... all with nothing on the score sheet in road games. Give credit to Alexander Radulov, he's been involved in every goal scored on the road this year.

The team ends October with a nightmare in Calgary... now, can the Preds celebrate All-Saints... or do they have a Halloween hangover in Vancouver? We'll find out on Thursday night.

Happy Halloween everyone!

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My posting yesterday certainly drew a lot of interest and I appreciate all of the email I received giving me your thoughts and comments.

Things will get even more interesting... I'll be on the TEAM 1040 this afternoon with David Pratt... it should be a really fun conversation. I'm scheduled to be on at 5:40pm CDT.

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Trying to understand the reason for the push badk in the start time of Thursday's game in Vancouver. The game now starts at 10pm CDT.

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