It's a special 5:00 p.m. start time today at Bridgestone Arena as the Nashville Predators host the Calgary Flames, in a game which will be seen nationwide on NHL Network (FS-TN locally). Can the Preds continue their recent success on home ice (where they've won 5 of the last 6) against a Flames team which desperately wants to remain in the playoff hunt?
Follow after the jump for your preview...
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Tale Of The Tape
| Calgary (18-16-5) at Nashville (20-14-4) | |||||||
| CGY Offense vs. NSH Defense | NSH Offense vs. CGY Defense | ||||||
| 5-on-5 | |||||||
| GF/60 | SF/60 | Shoot % | GA/60 | SA/60 | Save % | ||
| CGY Offense | 2.3 (19th) | 28.8 (18th) | 7.8 (22nd) | 2.4 (9th) | 30.5 (23rd) | 921 (11th) | CGY Defense |
| NSH Defense | 2.4 (9th) | 31.1 (27th) | 923 (8th) | 2.1 (24th) | 26.3 (28th) | 8.0 (21st) | NSH Offense |
| GA/60 | SA/60 | Save % | GF/60 | SF/60 | Shoot % | ||
| Special Teams | |||||||
| CGY PP vs. NSH PK | NSH PP vs. CGY PK | ||||||
| GF/60 | SF/60 | Shoot % | GA/60 | SA/60 | Save % | ||
| CGY 5-on-4 | 6.3 (13th) | 44.5 (23rd) | 14.2 (6th) | 5.1 (10th) | 47.7 (7th) | 893 (12th) | CGY 4-on-5 |
| NSH 4-on-5 | 6.8 (22nd) | 53.4 (24th) | 873 (18th) | 6.9 (5th) | 51.7 (10th) | 13.5 (7th) | NSH 5-on-4 |
| GA/60 | SA/60 | Save % | GF/60 | SF/60 | Shoot % | ||
Calgary Flames
The man to keep an eye on is the Predator Killer himself, Jarome Iginla, who needs just two goals to become the 42nd NHL player to reach 500 career goals, and just the 15th to score them all with one team. In 47 career games against Nashville, Iginla has 28 goals and 25 assists, a pace which, over the course of an 82 game season, would yield 92 points.
So yeah, there's a possibility you could witness some serious history this evening:
It's always interesting to see injury reports from other teams... can you guess why?
Nashville Predators
The roster will get a bit of a tweak heading in to this game, as Shea Weber has been placed on Injured Reserve with his concussion, while Kevin Klein has been restored to the Active Roster. With Klein back in the lineup, which defenseman gets scratched? Ryan Ellis is lowest on the seniority list, but Jack Hillen has been a healthy scratch on occasion, and leaving him out would restore a 3-lefty, 3-righty lineup that Barry Trotz prefers.
Up front, Colin Wilson is expected to miss another game with his upper-body injury, so that removes the necessity of scratching anybody, but the interesting question will be where, and how much, Gabriel Bourque will play. In his 2nd NHL game Friday night, he received 13:51 of ice time playing alongside Nick Spaling and Jordin Tootoo, in Wilson's recent spot. Might Trotz shuffle things up and bring his energy and hustle to either the Legwand or Fisher line instead? Kostitsyn-Fisher-Hornqvist seems like a trio which has really fallen flat, as those three have all gone scoreless over the last four games.
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