The talk of the NHL lately has been the Detroit Red Wings' league-record 21-game home winning streak, which dates all the way back to November 5th. Are the Nashville Predators the team to end that run?
Let's find out after the jump...
Tale Of The Tape
| Nashville (33-18-6) at Detroit (39-17-2) | |||||||
| NSH Offense vs. DET Defense | DET Offense vs. NSH Defense | ||||||
| 5-on-5 | |||||||
| GF/60 | SF/60 | Shoot % | GA/60 | SA/60 | Save % | ||
| NSH Offense | 2.4 (15th) | 27.0 (25th) | 8.7 (11th) | 2.3 (9th) | 31.0 (28th) | 926 (7th) | NSH Defense |
| DET Defense | 2.0 (5th) | 26.5 (4th) | 926 (7th) | 2.9 (2nd) | 32.1 (4th) | 9.1 (5th) | DET Offense |
| GA/60 | SA/60 | Save % | GF/60 | SF/60 | Shoot % | ||
| Special Teams | |||||||
| NSH PP vs. DET PK | DET PP vs. NSH PK | ||||||
| GF/60 | SF/60 | Shoot % | GA/60 | SA/60 | Save % | ||
| NSH 5-on-4 | 7.4 (2nd) | 48.3 (18th) | 15.4 (2nd) | 6.9 (23rd) | 53.4 (21st) | 870 (19th) | NSH 4-on-5 |
| DET 4-on-5 | 6.7 (21st) | 47.3 (9th) | 858 (24th) | 6.5 (11th) | 53.2 (8th) | 12.2 (15th) | DET 5-on-4 |
| GA/60 | SA/60 | Save % | GF/60 | SF/60 | Shoot % | ||
The Red Wings are, as usual, an elite puck-possession team, putting up dominant Shots For & Against results once again. This translates to special teams as well, with both the PP and PK working well (goaltending on the penalty kill tends to vary wildly, so I wouldn't read too much into how that inflates their GA/60 of 6.7).
Detroit Red Wings
The Red Wings will miss Jimmy Howard, Henrik Zetterberg and Dan Cleary from this one due to injury, so they've called up Tomas Tatar from Grand Rapids, who looks to play his first NHL game of the season.
With 57 points in 55 career games against Nashville, Pavel Datsyuk has feasted on the Preds. With just 3 goals in his last 21 games, however, he has been a bit cold of late. Even though they won't have the option of making the final line change before faceoffs, expect Barry Trotz to get Shea Weber & Ryan Suter out there as much as possible against him:
As to who will play in goal for Detroit with Howard out, Jeff at Winging It In Motown makes his choice clear:
Damn right Joey MacDonald is the number two goalie. They Red Wings don't have this home win streak record without him. We wish you the best in Grand Rapids, Ty.
Nashville Predators
While they lost their November 26 visit to Motown, the Preds should have plenty of confidence that they can win at Joe Louis Arena, where they took two out of three decisions last season.
Patric Hornqvist has been ruled out of this game, and Sunday's at Dallas, due to an undisclosed injury (he did take some wicked abuse up in Boston last Saturday). That opens an opportunity for the hottest hand in the lineup to take over the team goal-scoring lead:
Can the Predators build off their Tuesday victory over Chicago to keep within striking distance of the Central Division leaders? Tune in at 6:30 p.m. Central on FS-TN to find out...
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