After playing each other in Nashville on Saturday night, the Nashville Predators and the Detroit Red Wings will do battle in Detroit tonight. After their contest on Saturday, a 3-1 loss, the Predators put on a display against the Ottawa Senators, defeating them 5-2 at Bridgestone Arena last night. Meanwhile, Detroit lost a home game to the Toronto Maple Leafs 3-2 on Sunday. Entering the second leg of a back-to-back, the Predators will need to shake of the sore legs from last night and redeem their previous loss to the Red Wings.
The Detroit Red Wings
There is not a whole lot that has changed for the Red Wings since Saturday. The same twenty guys will be –
Oh, wait.
Petr Mrazek, who split time in net with Jimmy Howard, was traded to the Philadelphia Flyers in their never ending quest to make people forget that they traded Sergei Bobrovsky away for peanuts. If Philadelphia makes the playoffs and Mrazek wins five games for them in the regular season, Detroit gets a third round draft pick instead of a fourth. If Philadelphia advances to the conference finals and Mrazek wins six playoff games, the third round pick becomes a second. Finally, if Philadelphia re-signs him next season, Detroit gets their 2019 third round pick.
-Catches breath-
The goalie market is always weird, kind of like goalies themselves. All that really matters is that the Predators are in all likelihood facing Jimmy Howard tonight.
The Nashville Predators
After a disappointing stretch of games in which the Predators went 5-3-2, the golden boys got back to their winning ways with a 5-2 win over Ottawa in which Viktor Arvidsson tallied twice. Although the volume of cheering from Arvidsson completing the hat-trick may have brought Bridgestone Arena crashing down, Roman Josi, Ryan Ellis, and Craig Smith scored the remaining three goals.
Although Josi and Ellis tallied on the power play, there was still a lack of creativity whenever the puck would be worked down low. Sure, all of the top four defensemen can score from the point, but it would be incorrect to call their power play inspiring.
Aside from the offensive outburst, Pekka Rinne made some huge stops on odd-man rushes. The number of those rushes was somewhat alarming and, had Rinne not been playing at 110% capacity, this game could have been much closer. Alexei Emelin needs to play a bigger role in preventing these rushes, as he seems to often get caught flat-footed on the opposing blue line when the opposition breaks out after sustained pressure by the Predators.
Reasons to Watch
- Viktor Arvidsson scored twice last night and became the Predators’ first 20-goal scorer this season. Who will be next? Craig Smith and Kevin Fiala both have 18, while Filip Forsberg has 17.
- The power play needs to look more interested in playing hockey. Even if they scored twice last night, a broken clock is twice right a day.
- Maybe the broadcast will show Eeli Tolvanen highlights.
Hockey Poll of the Day
The eternal question lives on…
Which color tape belongs on the stick blade: black or white?
| Black | 49 |
| White | 23 |
I’ve always worn black when playing left wing and would swap to white if I ever had to fill in on defense.
Sights and Sounds
This is an eastern time zone game, so the puck will drop at 6:30pm central time. You can catch the FS-TN television broadcast or tune your radio to 102.5 to listen into the game.