The Nashville Predators return home tonight, still looking for their first win of the season, to face a Seattle Kraken team doing not much better — they’ve had one win, which came in a shootout over Minnesota, and a pair of losses of their own.
The Nashville Predators
Steven Stamkos has been a little bit unlucky so far, with a few high-profile misses and no shots going through to land in the back of the net. By Natural Stat Trick’s metrics, he leads the team in individual expected goals at all strengths and comes in in the top three both 5v5 and on the power play.
The sudden change in roster is probably taking some getting used to, and the expectations placed on him as a bona fide superstar who came to Nashville in free agency probably aren’t helping. He’s been doing the right things, though — as well as participating in the sadly time-honored Predators tradition of taking penalties on the power play; he’s fitting in already — and the goals will come. Maybe tonight?
That, and Juuse Saros’s performance, are the current big questions for Predators fans. Saros had a rough year last season, but he’s always tended to start slow, and Saturday night’s performance was fine. There are a lot of eyes turned his way this season as well; hopefully things work out all right.
The Seattle Kraken
Jordan Eberle has accumulated three points and two goals for Seattle, leading the team in both categories, while they haven’t gotten the goaltending they probably would have liked. Philipp Grubauer and Joey Daccord have turned in a .896 and .895 sv% respectively, with Grubauer minding the net in both the losses and Daccord getting the 5-4 shootout win.
Their special teams have been a little below average, but it’s too early in the season to say much about that. We might be able to look forward to some 5v5 time, with Seattle not tending to take or draw that many penalties.
The Game
The game airs at 7PM Central on Bally Sports South and 102.5 The Game.
It’s also Hispanic Music Heritage Night, with an auction of player-signed jerseys in the first of what I hope will be several great designs as the Preds start a series celebrating the music of the people who help make up Music City.