The Sens were hot coming into Nashville, and they leave even hotter than before. The Preds appeared to take the night off (except Pekka Rinne and some of the grinders) as they let the suddenly surging Senators hold on to a 2-0 victory. Not the effort the 14,681 in attendance at the Sommet Center were looking for.
Felder’s FRUSTRATED Five:
1. A Lack of Interest - The guys have said over and over that a solid start is imperative to give this team a chance. Well tonight the guys took the first two periods off. The general lack of interest that I saw was quite disheartening and not the type of Predators hockey most fans have grown accustom to seeing. 1st period let downs have been the silent killer lately. The 2nd and 3rd periods the Preds matched the Sens effort, but I never felt Nashville was out working Ottawa in this game.
2. SLOPPY D FOR ALL TO SEE - There is no doubt that the 2 goals for Ottawa were direct results of some sloppy defense. Peks can get half of the blame on his failed clearing attempt on the first goal. I saw such sloppy D tonight that I truly felt so sorry for Rinne. He put in a real solid effort and bailed out d-man after d-man. Stopping at least 2 breakaways (one was shorthanded) and around 3 to 5 odd man rushes is no easy task, but the Predators D forced Peks to do just that. A total of 10 giveaways for Nashville and 14 takeaways for Ottawa did not help matters much either.
3. The Time When the Preds Have One Person More Than the Other Team On the Ice but Do NOTHING With It - At the end of the 2nd period, the Preds had 3 shots on goal with the man advantage and the Sens had 3 shots on goal shorthanded. That is wrong in so many ways my friends. I have preached this and preached this over and over again. I'm running out of breath and writing space on this topic. I really don't know how they are 29th instead of 30th. I guess I'd hate to see how bad Columbus must be to actually be worse than Nashville. Barry Trotz addressed the issue in his post-game presser, but his words don't give me the hope for much change out of this unit. You can find those comments in the Quotes section.
4. A Pass First Mentality - I don't know what it is about these guys, but sometimes they get it in their heads that passing first is the best option. J.P. Dumont has had this mentality I would say since the end of November. Since November 28th, he has had more than 3 shots on goal in a game just twice. That is not cutting it. This is the 2nd game in a row I've called J.P. out, but out of this team's big 4 (Arnott, Dumont, Erat, and Legwand) he is the only one with a lack of shots on goal. At the end of the game, I looked at what the top two lines were doing. Legwand and Erat were putting up their fair share of shots (6 for Erat, 4 for Leggy), but if you looked at the top line, things were not as they should be. Arnott had 1 shot on goal, Sullivan 1 shot on goal, and then there was Dumont with a big blank. 0 shots on goal at the end of the game. I really like J.P. and think he is a solid player, but at this point his lack of production is showing up. It really may be as simple as him shooting first and asking questions later.
5. Focusing On the Wrong Aspects - These guys were focused on hitting the opponent and trying to slow them down instead of sound positioning. They did it with success against Boston, but tonight they found themselves missing assignments and leaving Peks out to hang when they went for hits instead of the puck. Tonight the Preds had 27 hits. They also had 24 shots on goal. Now, don't get me wrong, I love physical play and taking the body like they did, but I would much rather see the shots on goal total be higher than the hits. Maybe I am alone in that but I think tonight proved that hits aren't the most important aspect if they aren't creating chances for your team.
Other Notes:
* Tonight’s scratches were Radek Bonk and Ville Koistinen.
* 1ST PERIOD
* GOAL for OTTAWA - 14:40 to go. Pekka Rinne attempts to clear the puck from the crease up along the left boards. His pass sends the puck past Greg de Vries on the half wall and then Mike Fisher picks the puck up before it crosses the blue line and cruises into the zone deep. Kevin Klein is left as the lone man back, and as he skates into the slot Fisher slides the puck over to Nick Foligno. Foligno wires the puck high stick side before Peks has time to get back to the other post. Bad play along the boards for the Preds costs them, although Pekka needs to get a better clear on that puck. Foligno from Fisher. Senators take the 1-0 lead.
* One hilarious moment at the 2nd TV timeout. Pierre Maguire heads to the Preds bench to interview Barry Trotz. Maguire is in the box between the benches as usual. So as he walks over on the ice, he hops over the boards and onto the bench right in front of Steve Sullivan. The look on Sully's face was priceless. He didn't know what the heck was going on and it clearly showed. Those at home in Canada, or the Center Ice viewers, were treated to a replay of this moment at the stoppage after Trotz interview. It was quite the funny moment though.
* GOAL for OTTAWA - 6:04 to go. Jason Spezza draws Zanon out to the boards. Spezza then feeds Dany Heatley to the right of Rinne. Dan Hamhuis drops to one knee to block a back door pass. Heatley fires the puck, it appeared to take a bounce off Hamhuis shoulder, and then went up and in high stick side on Rinne. Defense is leaving Peks out to hang way too often this period. Heatley from Spezza and Brian Lee. Ottawa has the 2-0 lead.
* Barry Trotz elects to use his timeout at this juncture.
* END OF THE 1ST PERIOD – NSH: 0 OTT: 2. Positives - Pekka has kept this at a 2 goal game making 11 saves. The Preds have 9 hits and blocked shots. Negatives - Sloppy defense that lead to Peks bailing his team out a handful of times, but it also led to two Ottawa goals. A negative for the Preds but positive for Ottawa in that the Sens are 9-1 when leading after the 1st period while the Preds have gone 3-14-1 when trailing after the 1st.
* 2ND PERIOD
* 13:25 to go. Devo misses his assignment, letting Chris Kelly slip behind him with speed. This forces Rinne out high to challenge the shooter as Kevin Klein sprawls to take away the shot along the ice. Kelly makes a nice move, has Rinne down on the ice and out of his net. Chris then has the entire net to pick off from the far post with Steve Sullivan moving towards the back end of the rink, but Kelly hits the left post and blows what should have been an easy put away goal.
* 9:40 to go and the Preds "man advantage" (and I use advantage in the lightest term possible) fails again. This time Dan Hamhuis can't keep the puck in the zone, giving it away to Mike Fisher for a long shorthanded breakaway. Fisher faked stick side, and then tested Peks glove, but Rinne saved the day again with the initial save. Fisher missed the net on his rebound opportunity 11 feet from the net. That's a dinner for Peks because Hammer owes him big time on that awful giveaway.
* END OF THE 2ND PERIOD – NSH: 0 OTT: 2. Positives - The Preds did not give up another goal. The Sens were limited to just 4 shots on goal that period. Negatives - Another period with less than 10 shots on goal (8). The "man advantage" has given up 3 shots on goal thus far, including a Mike Fisher breakaway.
* 3RD PERIOD
* 9:45 to go. Shea Weber finds himself getting ran into by Ryan Jones at the top of the crease. Shea Web was slow to get to the bench after the accidental collision between himself and the rookie. Weber went to the locker room but did return later in the period.
* :58 seconds to go and Peks heads to the bench in favor of the extra man.
* FINAL SCORE – NSH - 0 OTT - 2.
My Three Stars:
1. Dany Heatley - 1 goal, a +1, 7 shots on goal, and 1 hit.
2. Alex Auld - 24 saves against the punchless Preds.
3. Mike Fisher - 1 assist, a +1, 3 shots on goal, and 1 takeaway.
Goalie Grade:B+ – The starting goaltender tonight was Pekka Rinne. Peks actually played an outstanding game, but his D let him down in the 1st period. The final on the night was 22 saves on 24 Ottawa shots. 3 shorthanded saves and 2 power play saves as well. It's really hard to swallow the Preds wasting such an outstanding goaltending effort from Rinne tonight.
Quotes:
Brandon Felder - "Do you feel like this was a flat start, uninspired play, or what do you chalk this one up to?"
Steve Sullivan - "Flat start. Obviously it's not uninspired the way we played in the 2nd and 3rd period, we kept up to them and had chance for chance with them. We just got to find ways to have better starts, we've been flat for the last 3 or 4 games and we can't expect to come back and win the way we did against St. Louis, it's just too hard."
Felder - "You looked pretty surprised when Pierre Maguire jumped over the boards there."
Sullivan - "I wasn't expected that. I said, "What are you doing?" and he goes, "I'm coming back, I want to play." I was just like, "Alright, good enough." (laughs)"
***
Felder - "At this point in the season what can you guys do to improve this power play?"
David Legwand - "Pucks to the net. I mean every (other) power play you see they shoot the puck. Once you get a lane up top you shoot it. We didn't get pucks to the net and that's what we need to do."
***
Felder - "Shea, obviously not a good 1st period, but you guys really clamped down after that."
Shea Weber - "Yeah, you know what, it doesn't even really matter. Same old story the last few games, we've got to get a good 1st period and it's been killing us."
Felder - "What happened on that collision there with Jones?"
Weber - "I don't know. He hit me from the back so I didn't even know what happened. Feel good though."
***
Felder - "What type of things do you have to do to kind of retool the power play and make it start working."
Barry Trotz - "Well I don't know if we can retool it because there are only so many people that are there on it. It's just about executing, battles, retrieval, going to the hard areas, it's about all those things and working as a collective group of five. Right now we where getting chances but the last two games we haven't got much on the power play."
Felder - "The top line only had two shots on goal. Is that just there defense playing that well or something else?"
Trotz - "Probably a combination of both. I didn't think our top line was really strong tonight. They got off to a slow start and then never really got going. I will re-watch the game a little bit but we turned too many pucks over. You know your making hope plays. Against teams that are playing well defensively, you can't make hope plays. Hope that it's going to land on your stick, throwing it blind, not taking it to the net, keeping it to the perimiter, then your not going to have much success. Those are some of the things that we didn't do well, was take it to those hard areas. When we did we had a little bit of success but we still weren't able to score."
Final Thoughts:
As Hockeybuzz user stackiii text me, "Needing to win 2 out of every 3 is not a license to take a night off after two straight wins." Very well put, because tonight the Preds just were not in the flow of things and looked uninterested to start the game. These kind of games don't sit too well with fans. With all due respect to my Hockeybuzz Radio partner Paul McCann, to think this team can possibly rise up to the 5th playoff spot (as he did say on tonight's pre-game show from Rippy's) is laughable at the moment. Sure, that may only be 6 points away, but there are 6 teams to catch and pass. I would have to see a better and consistent effort night in and out from this team to even say I think they are a lock for the playoffs, let alone to reach 5th.
The Predators next game is this Wednesday night at Detroit. Game time is set for 6:30 pm CST. Maybe the guys were looking ahead tonight to this game instead of focusing on the task at hand. It will be very interesting to see what kind of effort the Preds give after tonight's lackluster performance. That game will be on FS TN for all to view and enjoy.
Till next time, take care friends.
Don’t forget to tune into the Nashville Hockeybuzz Radio show, Monday nights from 6 to 7 pm on WNSR 560 A.M. with Paul McCann and myself discussing all things Preds! Listen in at the WNSR Website for the best new Preds radio show around! The podcasting for the Nashville Hockeybuzz Radio show can be found at the following: Nashville Hockeybuzz Radio Podcast. Also, you may find the new Hockeybuzz Radio website enjoyable as well. It can be found at Hockeybuzzradio.com. Enjoy!
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