The Nashville Predators Sniffing Victory against Vancouver Canucks
The Predators are frantic for a win, but will be going against some of the toughest teams in the league right now; they face top team Vancouver on Thursday following Calgary and San Jose
the upcoming days as part of their four day road trip freshly coming out of a loss against Edmonton in a shootout. It will be the third out of four times that both teams will meet, currently tied with a Vancouver victory in January when Roberto Luongo almost
shut them out 2-1, and the second in February where Nashville’s Pekka Rinne responded with 34 out of 35 saves taking the match 3-1.
“We wanted the two points,” Predators Coach Barry Trotz said. “We need two points every night right now. We are still trailing the pack by a little bit here. Getting one is disappointing.
But at the same time, one is better than nothing.”
Regrettably, Nashville weren’t able to start the month as planned when losing to the lowest ranking team, but are getting players back from injuries and will consider a victory from Vancouver
a fresh start. Blake Geoffrion might be gaining momentum, extremely motivated by his first goal in his third NHL game; he looks to now want to dominate as the fear of not performing should have died off by now. After the inaugural goal of his career, he hoped
that there were many more to come in the upcoming days.
Vancouver, unquestionably is the best team in the NHL as of now, but has seen some disappointments of its own, one that comes to mind is their last matchup with the brittle Montreal Canadiens,
losing to them showed people that anything could happen at any time. With 89 points, the Canucks are followed by the Philadelphia Flyers and Detroit Red Wings at 86 and 85 points respectively. Their All-Star player Ryan Kesler has slowed down since the All-Star
Game weekend ended due to unknown reasons; developing chemistry throughout the team is their only chance at winning the Stanley Cup for the first time in Vancouver this season.
“The last two weeks has been a little on and off,” Vancouver captain Henrik Sedin told a local newspaper. “Every second game we are playing is well and it’s something we have to bring
up and talk about because the playoffs are getting closer and we need to get back to playing well.”
Players to lookout for
Nashville defensemen Ryan Suter has been opening up many chances for teammates in recent games, his latest one being when he set up Geoffrion from behind the Oilers net on Tuesday in Edmonton,
also gaining points in three games straight. While Vancouver undergoes problems with defence, Nashville has offensive problems of their own, with forwards Marcel Goc out with an upper-body injury and Steve Sullivan with a lower-body injury.
Canucks Centre Manny Malhotra contributed with triple goals and multiple assists these past few days, he and his team are mostly suffering from a number of injured star defensemen including
Kevin Bieksa, Alexander Edler and Andrew Alberts who are out indefinitely, causing the rest of the team to put in more than they can handle.
Both teams are the best at penalty kill percentages in the Western Conference, with Vancouver at 85.9 percent and Nashville at 85.5, such statistics make it a must watch match, as anticipation
grows out of control coming closer to the play-offs.