Predators @ Blue Jackets preview: Time for a Slumpbuster
by Dirk Hoag on Dec 8, 2011 8:34 AM EST
in Nashville Predators Game Previews
Email
Print
Tonight in Columbus (6:00 p.m. Central on FS-TN), the Nashville Predators will seek to get back on the winning track, as a recent slide has dropped them to 11th place in the Western Conference. The Blue Jackets, meanwhile, are stirring themselves out of an early season slumber and are playing competitive hockey of late, threatening to climb out of the conference basement for the first time all season.
Follow after the jump for the breakdown!
Saturday's game vs. Anaheim should be a sellout, but check out our Tickets page to find deals on the resale market!
Tale Of The Tape
| Nashville (12-11-4) at Columbus (8-16-3) | |||||||
| NSH Offense vs. CBJ Defense | CBJ Offense vs. NSH Defense | ||||||
| 5-on-5 | |||||||
| GF/60 | SF/60 | Shoot % | GA/60 | SA/60 | Save % | ||
| NSH Offense | 2.2 (23rd) | 25.5 (28th) | 8.5 (13th) | 2.4 (12th) | 31.6 (27th) | 925 (9th) | NSH Defense |
| CBJ Defense | 2.8 (23rd) | 28.9 (10th) | 904 (24th) | 2.1 (24th) | 29.8 (15th) | 6.9 (28th) | CBJ Offense |
| GA/60 | SA/60 | Save % | GF/60 | SF/60 | Shoot % | ||
| Special Teams | |||||||
| NSH PP vs. CBJ PK | CBJ PP vs. NSH PK | ||||||
| GF/60 | SF/60 | Shoot % | GA/60 | SA/60 | Save % | ||
| NSH 5-on-4 | 6.6 (10th) | 51.6 (11th) | 12.7 (12th) | 6.0 (18th) | 52.8 (21st) | 887 (14th) | NSH 4-on-5 |
| CBJ 4-on-5 | 10.2 (30th) | 50.3 (13th) | 798 (30th) | 3.6 (28th) | 54.2 (7th) | 6.7 (29th) | CBJ 5-on-4 |
| GA/60 | SA/60 | Save % | GF/60 | SF/60 | Shoot % | ||
This isn't exactly what you'd call a battle of titans... but the Blue Jackets have been devastated by shoddy goaltending so far. Of course, as we'll see below, they may have found a solution there for the time being, so this game will prove a stiffer test than these season-long averages might imply.
Columbus Blue Jackets
With 12 points in their last 10 games, the Blue Jackets are playing like a respectable NHL team lately, after that horrifying start which stuck a fork in their playoff hopes before the season even hit Thanksgiving. The guy they hoped could carry the job in goal, Steve Mason, continues to flounder (.875 save percentage, 3-12-1 record) and former Pred Mark Dekanich, who was supposed to back Mason up, has been injured without playing a game yet.
Their salvation has been found in journeyman Curtis Sanford, who, now with his 3rd NHL team after spending the last two seasons in the AHL, has stabilized things enough so that Columbus can take some time to further evaluate the team before making major changes.
One move they have made recently is the hiring of Craig Patrick as senior advisor, a hire which bodes well for the Blue Jackets' long-term prospects. In the here & now, however, Columbus is glad to have Kristian Huselius back in the lineup, after an off-season training injury caused him to miss the first 25 games of the season. His return gives the Blue Jackets a pretty enviable group of forwards, with the sort of depth up front that is causing some uncomfortable situations.
Recently, for example, Derick Brassard's agent went public with criticism of Columbus management, claiming they were using his client as a scapegoat for the Blue Jackets' awful start. I can't see how that kind of move will help his cause with the coaching staff, but you'd have to think that perhaps it has earned him a ticket out of town via trade, once the right opportunity comes along.
Coming into tonight's game, the Blue Jackets are opening up a home stand, after having salvaged a .500 road trip with a win at Montreal Tuesday night:
Nashville Predators
Still without Jordin Tootoo tonight while he serves the last game of his suspension, the Preds will look to find the winning combination against their old expansion rival in Columbus. Nashville won their season opener here 3-2, so they'll look to re-establish their dominance over the longtime Central Division also-ran (at least next year they won't have that title any more - they'll be the Central Conference also-ran!).
Sergei Kostitsyn returned to the lineup Tuesday against Phoenix, and put 3 shots on net in just 11:15 of ice time. Has he gotten a message from the coaching staff about being more aggressive offensively? We can hope...
The scoring leadership up front has been taken over by Craig Smith, in what may be a new tradition in Nashville of a surprising name stepping up each season to lead the way. Last year it was SK74, and the year before that it was Patric Hornqvist with his 31 goals.
Sure, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins is running away with the rookie scoring race, but 2nd ain't bad, and Smith leads the Predators in goals, assists, and total points right now. He's the one guy who has lived up to all the summer hype, and then some.
They'll need that kind of leadership as Nashville seeks to get their offense rolling consistently again. They've hit the ballyhooed 3-goal mark just once in the last 8 games, and kept their opponents under 3 only twice in that span.
So can the Preds put it together at both ends of the ice tonight and break out of their current funk?
31 comments
|
0 recs |
Do you like this story?
Comments
If we don’t win this game, then I don’t know what to think of this team.
"I am you, you are me, and we are all together" Beatles
the backup to the backup… we’re screwed
60% of the time it works every time
by Creeping Death on Dec 8, 2011 10:50 AM EST up reply actions
I thought SK looked
pretty aggressive out there on Tuesday considering his line-mates.
…and speaking of said line-mates. I wish we could get some aggression out of Spals and Halischuk. Those two, along with Hillen, need to perform better overall. Hillen looks terrible under pressure and the other two seems to focus waaay to much on positioning and almost never possess the puck. When the do it is coughed up easily. Newsflash guys…ATTACK THE #$%*ING PUCK!
i’ve felt better about hillen, excluding the first 9 second of last game. being paired with klein 5-5 and on pk has worked and he’s got 2 goals the past week.
The first 9 seconds against Phoenix was just weirdness that noone expected.
I still prefer Hillen to Klein.
by Melissa Vanderpool Wallace on Dec 8, 2011 10:44 AM EST up reply actions
Also Hillen scored the tying goal with 10 seconds left in the first.
Klein has played much better paired with Hillen because Hillen’s game and positioning is so much more structured than Bouillion and especially Blum and Josi.
After reading over the Phoenix GDT, I found myself disappointed in the way some of you acted towards Saber-tooth. He came in, obviously upset at the outcome of the last couple of games and you started calling him a troll. Bad form. Then when he gets upset at your ‘troll-baiting’ and starts cussing, you call to have him banned. I don’t think his response was the best but certainly understandable from an apparent fan who gets called out at being a troll.
This is a picture he put up in a fan post.
This is a link to his other fan posts.
How many trolls spend time photoshopping photos and writing fan posts?
Do a little research before you start calling someone a Troll and a Nascar fan.
While it doesn’t seem that he makes that many comments, he has taken some time to submit pretty well-written fan posts. Don’t alienate contributors. Fans are occasionally going to get upset at this team.That doesn’t make them trolls.
World Wide Weber.
There is no tenderness or humanity in fanaticism.
~Joe Strummer
It was the repeated “F you”s back at people (at very little provocation) that I won’t tolerate.
Managing Editor of On the Forecheck, SB Nation's blog covering the Nashville Predators, and founder of Hockey Gear HQ, a site devoted to helping you save on hockey equipment, accessories, and NHL apparel.
And btw, many of them have been hidden by me since then, so even if you go back in the thread you can’t see them.
Managing Editor of On the Forecheck, SB Nation's blog covering the Nashville Predators, and founder of Hockey Gear HQ, a site devoted to helping you save on hockey equipment, accessories, and NHL apparel.
I’m not saying it didn’t get out of hand, I’m saying that trolls don’t create good fan posts. I’m as pollyanna as a fan there is, but I don’t start calling people that are down on the team, trolls. It looks like the reason that it got out of hand is because people didn’t respect his opinion in the first place. So, in hockey terms, he may have beaten the snot out of a few players and deserved a game misconduct, but he didn’t get an instigation penalty.
World Wide Weber.
There is no tenderness or humanity in fanaticism.
~Joe Strummer
Cisar a lot of his responses aren’t there anymore. He posted an opinion in very strong terms. People disagreed with him in equally strong terms. He began calling names and using profanity. I’m not saying he was a fan of another team or not a fan of the Predators, but he behaved in a way that was appeared intended primarily to start an argument. He really did attack folks personally for disagreeing with his stated opinion and he really did take offense at the fact that people didn’t agree with him. To me, that is the definition of trolling/instigating.
R.I.P. Belak, Rypien, Boogaard, Lokomotiv.
Trolling is posting stuff to purposefully start arguments. Did he call names BEFORE someone started calling him a troll?
Melissa, some people take offense at being called a Nascar fan. When someone says ‘Go back to Nascar’, they aren’t intimating that you are an intelligent person. It is used as an insult, regardless of how you, or I, feel about it.
Regardless, from the start it seems like people were instantly inhospitable to his opinion.
World Wide Weber.
There is no tenderness or humanity in fanaticism.
~Joe Strummer
I’m comfortable with the ban. There may have been a little back & forth, but he went nuclear right away.
Reactions like “piss on all of you”, calling someone an idiot who merely posted a “calm down” type of statement, and the multiple f-u’s won’t be tolerated.
Managing Editor of On the Forecheck, SB Nation's blog covering the Nashville Predators, and founder of Hockey Gear HQ, a site devoted to helping you save on hockey equipment, accessories, and NHL apparel.
Dirk, I’m not saying it wasn’t appropriate, he seemed like someone who came to read but not always to post, so he should be aware of the rules. I
am just saying, after viewing his posts, it is pretty clear he wasn’t a troll and people were wrong to get on that bus, increasing his anger, it appears.
World Wide Weber.
There is no tenderness or humanity in fanaticism.
~Joe Strummer
by cisar on Dec 8, 2011 5:49 PM EST via mobile up reply actions
I think Saber-tooth made some baited remarks, pretty quickly walked over the line, and probably deserved the boot. Hard to defend him in this case at all. I don’t necessarily blame anyone that called for a kick. At the same time, I think Cisar has a valid point .
Fans are going to come to OTF looking to vent at times. People come looking for that other person with the minority opinion or that is just as furious with something as they are. People are going to have unique perspectives and inevitable things can get heated. If you take everything personally or get blindly defensive of your own opinion, especially after a string of disappointing games, this kind of interaction is more likely to happen.
I wasn’t involved and am certainly not the most popular member of OTF so I am not going to preach as to how anyone else should act. I do know that invariably, when someone is on the attack, the main thing they want is for someone to take the bait. I try to remind myself that if i start feeling sucked in. Otherwise, to me, the main rule is simple: no personal attacks.
by Marcus Newman on Dec 8, 2011 1:54 PM EST up reply actions
I agree that as a community we have to accept that people will disagree with one another
It’s a very, very difficult thing to do, especially when we’re feeling particularly vulnerable after a loss, but it’s what makes places like this work. But it won’t work if we aren’t at least civil to each other. The most uncivil parts of this particular exchange have been hidden (and with good reason, given that kids read them), and along with them the timing of that particular incident doesn’t really show.
Nonetheless, the “no personal attacks” policy is one I’ve tried to adopt, too, along with leaving the site altogether when I start to respond emotionally to what I’m reading. (unless it’s a really sad story, or a picture of Pekka and a puppy, because who wouldn’t be moved at a picture of Pekka and a puppy?)
R.I.P. Belak, Rypien, Boogaard, Lokomotiv.
One of the hardest, but most important things in those kinds of threads is to know when to just leave well enough alone and move on. It’s easy to fall into the temptation of responding to each post that differs from one’s own opinion.
Managing Editor of On the Forecheck, SB Nation's blog covering the Nashville Predators, and founder of Hockey Gear HQ, a site devoted to helping you save on hockey equipment, accessories, and NHL apparel.
by Dirk Hoag on Dec 8, 2011 2:36 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
Hi Folks
Just an FYI… Kristian Huselius is back out again. Hurt his groin on Tuesday. Sad trombone.
Writer for The Cannon - A Columbus Blue Jackets blog
Follow me on Twitter
"I will say anything to be funny, often in the most horrible situations, which is one reason [a] good [woman] so far [has] been very sorry on occasion to have married me." --Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
I know I personally am super-duper sad, Dan, as I’m certain the entire state of Ohio is just crushed that Tootoo is out for showing Miller the business end on an Inuk…
by Marcus Newman on Dec 8, 2011 2:27 PM EST up reply actions
The sad trombone was more in reference to the fact that, due to injury, he’s missed 2,432 out of the last 2,437 games for Columbus, or something. Just noted something about him in the preview and thought I would note that he was out again.
Writer for The Cannon - A Columbus Blue Jackets blog
Follow me on Twitter
"I will say anything to be funny, often in the most horrible situations, which is one reason [a] good [woman] so far [has] been very sorry on occasion to have married me." --Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
That, my friend, is a lot of games lost. Poor fella. Great, now you have me feeling all sympathetic for a sworn enemy…
by Marcus Newman on Dec 8, 2011 4:10 PM EST via mobile up reply actions
Comments For This Post Are Closed
Secondary Sidebar
User Tools
Related FanPosts on On the Forecheck
Related FanShots on On the Forecheck
FanPosts
Community blog posts and discussion.
Recent FanPosts
About OTF
Dirk Hoag is the Forechecker, churner of NHL stats & analysis, and managing editor of On the Forecheck.
Follow @Forechecker
Got a question, a suggestion, or are interested in advertising here to reach thousands of Nashville Predators fans? Feel free to email the.forechecker@gmail.com.
Featured Stories
Are you new here? Read this first!
Check us out on iTunes!
In Association With
Latest Puck Daddy - NHL from Yahoo! Sports
- Why the Devils and the Kings are evidence the Capitals shouldn’t trade Alex Ovechkin
- Eulogy: Remembering the 2011-12 New York Rangers
- Stanley Cup Final: 5 keys for New Jersey Devils and Los Angeles Kings
- Friday’s Three Stars: Devils head to Final; Brodeur, Kovalchuk the difference in Game 6
- Devils eliminate Rangers in Game 6, ending fear of the past, setting course for the future
