Nashville Predators
It’s no secret that Nashville and Dallas don’t like each other…there’s a bit of animosity between these teams. Tonight’s game is the first of a back-to-back set, so we should see both Saros and Rittich.
The Preds placed Filip Forsberg and Nick Cousins on injured reserve on Tuesday and recalled Mathieu Olivier and Michael McCarron from the Admirals. Olivier and McCarron are both large bodies and I’ll go ahead and assume that part of tonight’s plan is to “play the body” against the Stars.
The Predators’ official game preview notes these interesting tidbits: “The Predators went 5-3-0 vs. the Stars in 2020-21, with all five victories coming in either overtime or a shootout. Nashville closed out its eight-game regular-season series vs. Dallas by winning five of the last six meetings. The Preds have earned at least a point in 16 of their last 23 games vs. Dallas (15-7-1).”
Dallas was making a late-season surge at the end of last year’s “short” season. With the Coyotes being so awful, Nashville HAS to stand out against teams like Dallas and Chicago. The Preds nabbed one “loser” point against Chicago in an overtime loss last weekend.
I certainly wouldn’t mind seeing more of this from Alex Carrier:
Dallas Stars
It feels like Nashville saw the Stars about 100 times last season, and that’s probably not an exaggeration. The Stars were without Ben Bishop, Tyler Seguin, and Alexander Radulov last season, so they should have the ability to separate from the Central Division “mush” this season…they haven’t.
The Stars added Braden Holtby in net and have promoted a few AHLers to full-time roles. They also picked up Luke Glendening, Jani Hakanpaa, and Michael Raffl. You can’t forget about Ryan Suter, either.
Holtby and Anton Khudobin have held down Dallas’s net with middling results.
Keep Your Eye on This Guy
Miro Heiskanen. The Finnish defenseman leads the Stars in points with 11 (2 goals, 9 assists).
Reasons to Watch
-More Juuse “playing out of his mind”
-Mathieu Olivier back in the lineup.
-Phil Tomasino playing with Ryan Johansen.
Tonight’s Theme Song
How to Watch
Puck drop is at 7:30 PM Central. Bally Sports South has the broadcast and 102.5 The Game has the radio call.