The Nashville Predators went into the Pepsi Center, which tastes exactly like the Coca-Cola Center, and beat the Colorado Avalanche 3-0. You’ll never guess who scored…
If you were late tuning in and you missed the Filip Forsberg goal, you pretty much missed the best part. As we’ve said about other games, this was a bit of a clunker offensively, but the Preds pulled it out. Pekka Rinne was a stud in goal tonight, stopping all 26 shots by the injury plagued Avalanche.
Two points! Division win! Great start to the road trip!
Random Observations
- Filip Forsberg with an opening goal that will go straight into the highlight reel. What a kid we have here, folks. If you missed it, here you go. (And how about Gabby’s long lead pass?)
- The 1st period ended with the Preds leading 1-0. Filip Forsberg scored. The Preds power-play didn’t. Pekka Rinne was solid. The sun rose and set. Someone on the internet watched a cat video.
- Now hearing that Paul Gaustad won’t return after giving it a couple shifts tonight. Get well soon, Goose.
- Bad Penalty Tracker: Ryan Ellis +1 (delay of game)
- The power-play seems to have spacing issues that are further complicated by mental error. I saw it against Chicago as well. Shooters in awkward positions with the puck and can’t get good angles. Point men not handling pressure well. Not able to establish position and then once position is established, someone either loses the puck or makes a bad pass.
- The Preds are missing out on opportunities, which is slowly giving Colorado life. Gabriel Landeskog just had oodles of open net to shoot into and he slam dunked it off the post. PDO magic.
- What’s worse than the Preds power-play? A double Preds power-play! Preds let a 4 minute power-play slip by without a goal.
- Another 3rd string goalie, this time Calvin Pickard, pretty much shutting us down. Pekka Rinne working his own magic on the other end, too.
- Carter Hutton thinks we aren’t bringing it as hard as normal tonight, and I agree with Carter Hutton.
- Colorado didn’t muster a great comeback. The rare double empty-netter finish, with Gabriel Bourque and James Neal getting the freebies.
- Shot advantage was Preds-36, Avs 26, but it felt more like Preds-10, Avs 12, or something like that.
- Two points!
OTF’s Super Duper Stars of the Game
- Filip Forsberg: he got roughed up a bit tonight… but that goal, though.
- Pekka Rinne: he was huge on yet another night where the offense was unable to break through with any consistency. His 3rd shutout of the season. All aboard the Vezina train.
- Gabriel Bourque: looks like a guy that wants to keep his job again. Great pass on the Forsberg goal and the empty netter for good measure. /
Tweets Of The Night
Did Forsberg score a gorgeous goal? “Yea.”
— Brandon Felder (@brandon_felder) December 10, 2014
<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet” data-partner=”tweetdeck”><p>Neal breaks his goalless streak tonight.</p>— On The Forecheck (@OnTheForecheck) <a href=”https://twitter.com/OnTheForecheck/status/542492983837220864″>December 10, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src=”//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>
Boxscore – Game Summary – Event Summary – War-on-Ice – HockeyStats – Natural Stat Trick
Roll the video highlights…