The home stand for the Nashville Predators went very poorly. Flying out of Nashville went poorly. This game went poorly. Nothing seems to be going right for the Preds right now. The Washington Capitals jumped on the Predators early, and were able to send them to their fifth straight loss.
Troy Brouwer opened the scoring just under seven minutes into the first period. Then, three seconds after Rich Clune was whistled for interference, Alex Ovechkin blasted his league-leading 22nd goal past Marek Mazenec. Karl Alzner made it 3-0 with his first goal at home, before Roman Josi stopped the bleeding for the Preds. Nate Schmidt and Eric Fehr would tally again for Washington in the third period, who handily won 5-2.
Random Observations
- Craig Smith better be sick. I say that because he was noticeably scratched from the lineup tonight. With the season he is having, there is no reason to sit him out. Especially if Clune is the one getting a sweater in his stead. How did that work out by the way? Oh, yeah.
- Marek Mazanec has not had his greatest games the past two outings. That shouldn’t be a surprise. Given his age and his work load, he was bound to come back down to Earth eventually. At some point, his team needs to start helping him out. Nashville has only scored six goals in the past five games, and allowed a whopping 18 goals. That’s not all on Maz, at all.
- Martin Erat almost burned his former team when Kevin Klein turned over the puck to him right in the slot. Fortunately for Nashville, he wasn’t able to get the puck up and it hit the pads of Mazanec. Double fortunately, Joel Ward couldn’t put the rebound home. Marty did, however, pick up an assist on Nate Schmidt’s first NHL goal.
- The Capitals like to give up goals immediately after scoring one themselves. It happened again tonight, as Eric Nystrom tucked away his fifth of the season midway through the third period.
- Mikhail Grabovski had two assists tonight, which brings his season point total to 24. The Predators didn’t need him anyway, apparently.
- Tally that up as another loss against the Metropolitan division which brings their record to 2-6-1. The Rangers are up next… /
This team doesn’t have any jump in its step anymore. We all know what needs to happen. This is the worst the team has looked all season, but the problems stem back to last year. This isn’t working anymore and it looks like the players on the ice know it.
Boxscore – Game Summary – Event Summary – Fancy Stats
Roll the video highlights…
