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Game Night in the C of Red

October 19, 2018, 8:55 AM ET [3 Comments]
Paul McCann
Nashville Predators Blogger •Predators Radio Network • RSSArchiveCONTACT
It’s a Friday night Game Night and the Nashville Predators are in western Canada for their first back-to-back of the season. They drop the puck in Calgary tonight at 8pm Central, then head to Edmonton for a Saturday night tilt tomorrow. Nashville has a chance for retribution for their opening night loss to Calgary tonight. The Flames come into tonight’s game after a big win over Boston on Wednesday night.

Calgary has shown a great deal of speed so far this season, and Nashville struggled with it quite a bit last Tuesday night. They struggled with that, and Mike Smith in net. Since then, the Preds have reeled off three straight wins and come into tonight’s match after a day or two to recover from their four game in seven night stretch.

No word on who will be in net tonight, but I would expect the starts to be split between Juuse Saros and Pekka Rinne. Once again these two goaltenders are pushing each other, which is nothing but good news for Pred Nation as this has been the recipe for success in net for Nashville.

Another key to tonight’s game could be Nashville’s second line. They have been threatening, but haven’t been able to finish consistently… that appears to be coming around as Kyle Turris has posted points in the last two games and Craig Smith has been scoring as well. The key to the danger factor on that second line is Kevin Fiala, who is hasn’t posted a single point in the first six games of the season.

Calgaryt is off to a solid start as well, posting a 4-2-0 record so far this young season. Johnny Gaudreau and Matthew Tkachuk lead the team in scoring with nine points each, Sean Monihan and Elias Linholm leads the team with four goals each.

The team is playing OK… still plenty of things to work on, but they are gathering points while they work on improvement. The team is healthy, no one on IR and everyone participating in practice.

Pred Nation is thankful for a couple of weekend west coast games… the late starts will have less of an impact on the Nashville work force’s production. Game time is 8pm central… coverage begins with the pregame show on 102.5 the Game at 7pm, Predators Live! gets going at 7:30pm on Fox Sports Tennessee. Game coverage begins at 8pm on both media, Willy Daunic and Chris Mason have the TV call, the Voice of the Predators Pete Weber and Hal Gill will be on the radio side.

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Random Notes

- Eeli Tolvanen update – In five games with the Admirals, Tolvanen has a goal and two assists and is a +2. A solid start for the youngster. The Ad’s are 4-0-1 and lead the AHL’s Central Division. They are back in action tonight in San Diego to take on the Gulls.

- According to Bob McKenzie on Wednesday Night Hockey, the Predators and Pekka Rinne have begun negotiations on an contract extension.

- Wanna know how hot the JoFA line is to start the season? They have eight goals and nine assists for 17 points so far.

- Flying under the radar… Ryan Hartman is off to a very good start… a goal and three assists so far… he has been a real sparkplug.

- The Penguins sent a message last night to the high-flying Toronto Maple Leafs, not so fast grasshopper! Matt Murray returned to the Pens net a shutdown the vaunted Maple Leafs offense, shutting them out 3-0. Evgeny Malkin had two goals in the win.

- Watch out for the Coyotes… Arizona put the smackdown on Chicago last night at the United Center, spoiling Corey Crawford’s return to the Blackhawks net.

- The final undefeated team in the NHL fell last night as the New Jersey Devils dropped a 5-3 decision to Colorado. Nashville and New Jersey are the only 1 loss teams in the league as of this writing.

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