Big home game for the Predators! Nashville currently trails Chicago by 6pts, Detroit by 5pts, and St. Louis by 4pts. The Hawks are always tough to beat! But I expect a good effort tonight by the Preds. Chicago won the only previous meeting this season, 5-4 in OT.
Glad Smith tacked on another goal. Kostitsyns was nice (the one that WAS allowed) showed great patience and poise, pulling the puck away from Crawford and letting him see the open net instead of just shooting.
The Hawks entered Nashville at 2:30am the morning of due to snow delays in the North, and their game the night before also started late due to this. We played a tired Hawks team but their offense certainly showed when Hossa burned both Captain Shea Weber and Rinne to get a nice goal. Besides that we played well especially down 2 defenders, Suter and Bouillon (left during the first) both out due to upper body injuries.
Not much has been said about Suters injury so it makes me wonder if Poille is testing how we do without him and preparing for a big trade, I'd be ecstatic to see a big goal scorer come to Nashville but then again keeping Suter and Weber on the back line is a HUGE plus come playoff time. Teams first lines just get shut down with them on the ice. Lots of hockey left this season, lets keep the ball rolling and keep drawing up W-streaks! GO PREDS!!