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Nashville Predators 1, Carolina Hurricanes 4: Naturally Disastrous Night in Smashville

Posted on by Nick Frias

The Nashville Predators dropped another game of their pre-Christmas part of the season with a loss in Bridgestone Arena tonight, dropping their record to 21-9-4 after getting blown out of the water early by the Carolina Hurricanes. Here’s how it went down.

Extremely early, the Predators were on the penalty kill, and the Hurricanes got on the scoreboard on their first shot. After a few minutes of nothing for either team, the Hurricanes scored their second goal of the game on their second shot. They extended their lead to 3 goals only a few minutes later, on their 4th shot of the game. And, as luck would have it, on their 6th shot, they made it 4-0.

That goal forced the hand of Coach Laviolette, as he put in backup goalie Juuse Saros. Kevin Fiala extended his point streak to a career high 9 games with a goal that brought the deficit back down to 3 with 4:27 remaining in the first period, which is where the score would stay through the first 20 minutes.

The second period started off slow, before Nashville was given an important power play opportunity, which they were unable to score on, despite putting pressure on Cam Ward and the Hurricanes. The next 10 minutes of the period were silent, before the Predators got a penalty followed right up with a power play, which then turned into a 5 on 3 for nearly a minute. The Predators were unable to score on either, and they also were put right back on the penalty kill as their power play ended.

The first 5 minutes of the 3rd went by very quickly, before Roman Josi drew a penalty that lead to yet another empty power play for the Preds. The rest of the game was pretty much the same as the beginning of the third period, save for a fight that got Scott Hartnell a game misconduct very late in the game. There is a lot to fix before Saturday.

Random Observations

  • No Smith means we’ll get to see Scott Hartnell play with the red-hot Fiala and Turris
  • Speaking of roster stuff, McLeod a healthy scratch tonight (You can breathe again)
  • Cool to see the Preds are willing to recognize people on all levels of the organization
  • That’s not good
  • Oh, that’s even worse
  • I was about to say, this can’t get any worse can it? Then it did
  • Joey, I know what you wanted to do there, but don’t take that penalty right now
  • Oh no. I’ll be back. Time to pull out the eggnog.
  • Tonight is not Pekka’s night. Unfortunately it probably won’t be Juuse’s either
  • Good News: The momentum seems to have turned around. Bad News: It’s still 4-0 bad guys
  • There’s something positive
  • Saros has played well so far this period. Good to see him improving
  • Yannick Weber taking a penalty, because the only thing that can kill the Predators momentum tonight is themselves
  • Penalty = kilt
  • Cam Ward made a great save on an almost perfect pass from Forsberg
  • Aho going to the box, good guys on the power play
  • Jesus, RyJo, that man has a family
  • Penalty = kilt (and we’re right back on the PP)
  • 5 on 3, let’s see if we can get something started
  • Okay, what was that about? Waste of time to add a single second to the clock
  • 2nd ending the way it started on the scoreboard, steep road ahead
  • Most important power play of the night
  • We have resorted to paying more attention vines of little children doing dumb stuff than the Predators playing a bad game. Back in a good mood, now let’s just get out of this game without any injuries./

OTF’s Super Duper Stars of the Game

  1. Cam Ward – The boys in gold didn’t put up many shots, but when they did Ward was there to keep them out of the net. I didn’t want to give a star to the enemy, but he honestly deserves it.
  2. Juuse Saros – Sure, he came in down 4-0. But at least he kept it from getting any worse.
  3. Kevin Fiala – Scored our only goal and was putting shots on net all night.

Tweets of the Night

Me too dude, Me too.

Game Video

Trust me, you don’t want to see it.

Talking Points