SlapShot Radio’s intrepid photographer captured the action last night at Bridgestone Arena, here are today’s Sunday Shots.
Courtesy DLM/SlapShot Radio
Click
here to enjoy the entire photo album.
Now… on to last night…
The Nashville Predators won their third straight last night, taking a 3-2 win over the San Jose Sharks in front of a raucous Bridgestone Arena crowd. The Predators started out fast, responded well, skated hard and withstood a late rally from the Sharks to post the win.
Nashville has upped its’ game over the past week, starting with Tuesday night’s win in New York. The team has rediscovered the work ethic that makes the Predators who they are and is the soul of this team. The skating has improved with each passing game, the compete level has increased and the team is getting rewarded for it.
This win streak is coming at an opportune time, with the Predators picking up three points in the playoff race. When the team rolled into New York, they stood eleven points out of the playoffs and at the bottom of the Central Division. After last night’s win, Nashville is now tied for 5th and eight points out of the third spot in the division. Still plenty of work to do, but things don’t look near as bleak as they did just a short week ago.
The Predators are starting to get the kind of play they planned for from a couple of free agent pickups, namely Viktor Stalberg and Carter Hutton. Stalberg seems to have finally adjusted to his new team and the system, his injury in training camp certainly impacted him here. He is showing the wheels that he is known for and is now getting his chances. Last night’s game winner was exactly what a goal scorer does. Sweeping down off the rush and firing at the right time. He didn’t take that extra stride, but fired at the top of the circle, when the goalie had more net to cover and beat Antti Niemi clean.
Carter Hutton is another one that deserves a shout out. After a difficult start and losing his role to Marek Mazenec, Hutton didn’t whine, didn’t cop an attitude… Hutton went back to work, taking extra time with Predators Goaltending Guru Mitch Korn, working on getting his game back. That work has paid off. Hutton has posted a 1.21 GAA with a save percentage of .964 in the month of December (thanks to Josh Cooper for that nugget.)
Here are the highlights from last night…
The road gets no easier as the Chicago Blackhawks hit town on Tuesday night to wrap up this three game homestand. The Predators will take off for Tampa for a one game roadie before coming back to Smashville next Saturday night for a pre-Christmas visit from the Montreal Canadiens.
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Random Notes
- Nice to see Eric Nystrom show up on the scoresheet last night. He has being playing inspired hockey over the last 5 games and he deserved to be rewarded.
- Victor Bartley brought the crowd to their feet last night with a board rocking hit in the third period on Sharks forward Tommy Wingles, who may still be looking for the number of the truck that hit him.
- The buzz around the media at the rink last night was the 15 game sentence given to Shawn Thornton for his hit on Brooks Orpik. Judge for yourself…
- One of the more interesting discussions last night was the recent trend in the NHL of retribution for perfectly legal hits. Simply not sure what the answer is for this conundrum.
- HBO premiered the latest version of 24/7 last night… I question the scheduling decision here. Saturday is one of the busiest nights in the league, why schedule the showcase at that time? Sunday was a better day for this…
- Speaking of 24/7… I saw a lot of the crabbing on Twitter last night during the initial showing. After watching it on DVR, I’m wondering if I recorded the same show? Sometimes the hockey media are way too difficult to please… I found the episode well done, well written and well put together. I am looking forward to the next one.
- Six games tonight – 2pm start – Flyers @ Capitals. 4pm start – Lightning @ Red Wings. 5pm start – Panthers @ Canadiens. 6pm starts – Flames @ Rangers, Kings @ Blackhawks. 7pm start – Oilers @ Ducks.
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