Friday's notes: Hockey beauty is in the eye of the beholder

by Dirk Hoag on Oct 22, 2010 10:29 AM EDT

Have the Preds fumbled away three games in a row, or have they persevered through adversity to maintain a blistering pace in the standings? It's all in one's perspective, I suppose, as reaction to last night's overtime loss runs the gamut from frustration to hopefulness.

Follow after the jump for a gazillion game recaps from around the Nashville blogosphere, along with a feature on how Blake Geoffrion is doing in Milwaukee, and an interview with Alexander Radulov's agent...

The ~~Mississippi River Scum~~ St. Louis Blues come to town next Thursday to take on the Preds. Use this special offer for OtF readers to save money on Nashville Predators tickets for this, or any other home game.

Nashville Predators News

Paul McCann - Another OT Loss and the Fox Sports / DISH Network Battle
Paul has an excellent breakdown of the nonsense going on between Fox Sports and Dish Network, and how it even impacts hockey fans who have different cable or satellite providers. For example, as it stands right now, Saturday's game at Dallas will be blacked out locally, whether you have Center Ice or not, even if you have cable or DirecTV.

Preds On The Glass: Predators Remain Unbeaten in Regulation and Friday Findings
Buddy notes the strong attendance seen so far at Bridgestone Arena, a great trend that bodes well for the rest of the season.

Preds On The Glass: Penguins Slip Past Predators 4-3 in Overtime
Buddy's recap is loaded with post-game commentary from the players and Barry Trotz.

Better effort but same result for Predators - Nashville Predators Examiner
Jim Diamond gives credit to a strong physical game by the Preds, creating chances out of big hits and sticking up for each other when challenged.

Brandon Felder - Pens Win In a Thrilling 4-3 OT Game in Nashville
Brandon sees the Preds as just running out of gas in the third period & OT.

The View from 111: Penguins Pilfer Points From the Predators in a 4-3 OT win
Mark calls out the refs for a heaping load of BS early in the game, when Malkin boarded Tootoo and got away with it. The Preds ended up shorthanded coming out of it, as Kevin Klein stepped up for his teammate.

Preds: "My Sister’s Not Bad Lookin,’ But I’m Kinda Getting Tired of Makin’ Out With Her." " Pull My (Fang)Finger
AJ invokes an old Michigan State football coach to sum up last night's effort.

Predators Lose Third OT Game In A Row, Crosby and Malkin Dominate Play - Predlines
Amanda credits Pittsburgh's dynamic duo as being just too much to handle.

Fang Finger Fever: Penguins Slide By Preds in OT, 4-3
Josh is thankful for the decent results are getting while missing key players from the lineup.

Preds still undefeated in regulation but lose third straight… | Section 303
Jeremy points out Erat's blunder from last night as well, taking away a late Nashville power play by taking an interference penalty during the delayed call.

Hockey Night in Nashville: Preds Lose in OT again; Martin Erat's Stupid Mistake
Robby's not too happy with last night's result, accusing the Preds of just giving away three straight games.

Predators come close (real close) but drop third straight OT contest - Nashville City Paper
David Boclair has Pekka Rinne admitting that he was "cheating for the pass" on Sidney Crosby's first goal last night. He let in a few goals like that last season as well, and hopefully doesn't become a persistent trend.

Penguins' Sidney Crosby doesn't disappoint Predators fans - The Tennessean
Did Preds fans really chant 'We want Crosby! We want Crosby!' in the third period last night? I doubt it, it was probably "We want Frosties" after the Hornqvist goal made it 3-2.

Postgame ponderings - Predators Insider
Josh Cooper wonders what Colin Wilson might do with more ice time (he got just 10:00 last night).

An early look at who could put the 'O' in 'O Canada' at the WJC - Buzzing The Net
Two Predators prospects (Ryan Ellis & Taylor Beck) are expected to be major players for Canada at this year's World Junior Championship.

Geoffrion Makes Short Move, but Big Jump - Milwaukee Admirals
Jason Karnosky provides a feature piece on Blake Geoffrion's transition to professional hockey, which only required a relocation from Madison, Wisconsin, where he starred in college, to Milwaukee.

Around the NHL

Chris Garner Benefit Auction - Western College Hockey Blog
The equipment manager for the Minnesota-Duluth hockey team has undergone some serious medical issues, and a wonderful auction of hockey memorabilia has been set up to help defray the costs. Please head on over and check this out.

What 6,706 fans look like at a Phoenix Coyotes home game - Puck Daddy
Yikes... Columbus and Atlanta have had some awful crowds early on as well.

Red Light District: Part Two: Conversation with agent Jay Grossman
Ryan continues his interview to talk about how Ilya Kovalchuk almost went to the KHL, and the prospects for Alex Radulov to come back (interview took place before news broke yesterday that Radulov signed a 3-year extension with Salavat Yulaev).

U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame Class of 2010 - USA Hockey
From the player side, the Hatcher brothers and Jeremy Roenick were inducted to the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame yesterday.

Do we want video review done quickly by the NHL or do we want it done right -- or both? | Lightning Strikes
Last night there was a controversial goal review in overtime which took about 10 minutes to resolve. Nobody wants to see these things drag out, but is it worth it to get the call right?

Down Goes Brown: Upcoming NHL records and milestones
Ouch: "Wade Redden - Recently became the AHL's all-time leader in career salary upon completion of his first shift."

Aggregated NHL Power Rankings: Week 2 - From The Rink
Mike Chen brings together an assortment of power rankings to get something close to a consensus opinion.

Fighting kills momentum in hockey - The Globe and Mail
Roy McGregor takes a whack at fighting in the game. I have no problem with fights that arise out of the physical play in the game, but designated enforcers who do little else on the ice are a blight on the game.

Wayne Gretzky's real Goal-Scoring record - Behind The Net
There's a lot more to professional goal-scoring than just NHL regular season games...

Cullen: Early leaders in NHL Points Per Minute
Scott Cullen offers up a points-per-minute list of top offensive producers, a ham-fisted attempt which suffers fatally from two big factors - the first, being that we're only a handful of games into the season, rendering these stats meaningless, and secondly, that they don't reflect power play vs. even strength activity.

Gary Bettman- Take Back Control of Your League | Hockey Independent
David sees the NFL as having taken an aggressive step towards protecting its players by addressing dangerous hits, and makes a case for the NHL doing the same.

Make sure you join us on Facebook! To keep up with all of our coverage of the Nashville Predators, you can follow us on Twitter (@Forechecker, @predatweeter, @SLakePreds& @Short_Shifts), and if you have any questions, feel free to email me at the.forechecker@gmail.com.

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Comments

Pride

I saw a lot to like about the Predators at sold out Bridgestone Arena last night. Anyone would admire a shorthanded, mix-and-match lineup that goes toe to toe and nose to nose with an elite team and only succumbs largely from exhaustion. The Predators left it all on the ice. Of course, the three stars were all Penguins and the post-game radio commentary was a love letter to Malkin and Crosby with allusions to Lemiuex—and surprisingly Malkin’s outrageously unpenalized hit on Tootoo went completely unremarked. But any true Predator fan had reason to walk out of the barn with head held high..

by Hockey Hillbilly on Oct 22, 2010 11:41 AM EDT reply actions

Best regular season game experience in a long time

Felt like a playoff game.
These points matter in the end.
In April, we won’t remember three straight losses, we’ll just be thankful for not having to claw and scratch to make the playoffs.

The Tootoo missed call didn’t bother me so much. It was a two minute board for sure,
but Tootoo went down far too easily. On the replay in the arena, it looked like he peeked over his shoulder, saw Malkin gliding in, and did his best to make the hit look good. Came home, saw the clip of the of the hit (with the homer Pens announcers who didn’t even admit there was a board), and it is seems to be some good acting on Tootoo’s part.
The way he acted (check out his skates at 1:05), it seemed like he should have been stretchered off.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rt_cMWMnlbk
Tootoo made the board look like a killshot. I don’t think this is the first time he’s gone done easy, either. Think he was Hoag’s nominee for Diver of the Year last year.

by DontfeedtheBelak on Oct 22, 2010 12:38 PM EDT reply actions

personally,

i was PROUD of our boy’s, and also the the fans. they played a tough team and still managed to come out with a point. they looked at little flat at the end, but i feel the attitude is different this year. with Shea as captian and a few new faces i think we will not only make the playoffs but go farther, maybe not all the way to the the Cup, but who knows? no matter how good the other team is our boy’s are just as good if not better. they have NOTHING to hang their heads about. i’m proud of this team and this organization. we have proved to everyone that on any given night we can compete with ANY team in the league. when you look at the caliber of athletes on this team and the support staff all the way to Poile you have a quality organization. like many i wish we had a big scoring forward and a much better PP, but all in all i’m very proud to call myself a PredNeck… ok now i’m off my soap box.

by bluegrassbaby on Oct 22, 2010 6:05 PM EDT reply actions

Smitty's comment...

Having to get away to not make it look pretty? Hell, as long as the boys come away with the ‘W’; I don’t care how “ugly” it is. Let Hornqvist jam away at it until it goes in – that’s what I want to see! What I don’t want to see is nothing, like the Calgary game. You don’t need to make it pretty for us, boys! We know what and how you have to win, just do it!

by DonBorvio on Oct 23, 2010 7:17 AM EDT reply actions