Nashville Predators 6, St. Louis Blues 1: A Six-Pack of Preds Light the Lamp

The Nashville Predators' offense burst out in grand fashion, scoring more goals tonight than they had in their last five games combined to knock off the Blues 6-1. Martin Erat and Colin Wilson led the way with three points apiece, and Pekka Rinne made 31 saves to earn his first regulation win of the season.

This gives the Preds a remarkable 4-2-1 record on this daunting seven-game road trip, and better yet leaves the team playing its best hockey of the season as they return home to Bridgestone Arena, for a game against the Los Angeles Kings Thursday night.

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Your Random Observations:

• We've been dogging Richard Clune to no end (and with good reason), but he gets a hearty tip o' the hat for scoring his first career NHL goal. That's a helluva thing.
• Brian Elliott wasn't to blame in particular for any of those 1st period goals, but those are the kinds of things that don't happen often in a season like he had in 2011-2012. Welcome Back to Earth.
• How about that goal for Gabriel Bourque in the second period to make it 5-0, and the effort to drive the net by Colin Wilson? Easily the highlight of the year so far...
• It's only natural that the Blues were going to come back and outshoot the Predators wildly from that point, it's the nature of the beast. All in all, the Preds kept things from getting too dangerous.
• The goal by Martin Erat (welcome back, btw) to make it 6-1 was a thing of beauty. First he let a pass up high go through him to the right point, causing a bit of disruption for the St. Louis defense as they had to re-adjust on the fly, but he kept cruising to the net, where Marty easily picked up a rebound and banged home the score. As physically impressive as the Wilson/Bourque goal was, this was tremendously clever.

Boxscore- Game Summary - Event Summary - Faceoff Report - Shot Summary

Relive the magic with the video highlights:

And for your advanced stats...

Nashville Predators

Don't sweat the negative numbers, they're a direct result of what we call the Score Effect. When a team gets a big lead, they consistently go into a bit of a shell, often opting for a dump into the zone and a line change rather than going for offensive chances. That's why, when I post game previews, I look at Fenwick Close as a measure of team puck possession - what truly matters is how the Shots For & Against flow when the game is truly on the line.

St. Louis Blues