Predators have been hot lately.
Just the facts
When: Tonight, 8 PM
Where: Bridgestone Arena – Nashville, TN
How to follow: NESN, 98.5 The Sports Hub
Opposing perspective: On the Forecheck
Know your enemy
- 43-27-4, 90PTS, 4th in the Central Division, Wild Card 1
- Filip Forsberg: 41G-43A-84PTS; Roman Josi: 19G-57A-76PTS; Gustav Nyquist: 22G-46A-68PTS
- Juuse Saros: 32-22-4, 2.83 GAA, .906 save percentage
Game notes
- This has been a weird road trip for the Bruins, in that all of their games have been on the road, but they’ve traveled home several times in between. Back to Boston after Philly and before Florida, back to Boston after Florida and before DC, etc. Anyways, tonight brings the B’s to Nashville!
- The Predators had been about as hot as a team can possibly be until last week, putting together a franchise-record 18-game point streak that only ended on Thursday with an 8-4 loss to Arizona. The Predators followed that up with a 7-4 loss to Colorado on Saturday.
- Both of those losses came on the road. In the friendly confines of Bridgestone Arena, the Predators are 8-0-1 in their last nine. Their last regulation home loss came on February 12 to the New Jersey Devils.
- Filip Forsberg strikes me as a guy who, similar to Patrice Bergeron like 15 years ago, is probably underrated for just how good he has been for the majority of his career. Forsberg has 20+ goal seasons in eight of the last ten years (with one of those misses being a 19-goal season). He has 40+ in two of the last three seasons.
- Anyways, I bring him up because he leads the Predators in scoring and has 5G-5A-10PTS totals in his last five games, which is…decent.
- Per our friends at On the Forecheck, the Predators can credit their recent success to strong 5v5 play, a clicking top line, a great checking line, and some solid goaltending. Sure sounds like a recipe for success.
- Juuse Saros has been a good ol’ fashioned workhorse for the Predators this season, playing in 58 of the team’s 74 games. Saros is tied for the league lead in games played with Alexandar Georgiev of the Avalanche.
- Nashville is a middle-of-the-pack team defensively on the whole this season, but they’ve allowed a bunch of goals lately: a whopping 19 GA in their last three games.
- In the “math is funny,” file, the Bruins and Predators actually have the same number of wins — but the B’s are 11 points clear due to their ability to wait until OT or the shootout to lose.
- Pat Maroon skated with the Bruins yesterday, but remains out.
- Other than that, there’s not a ton to report for the B’s. There will be some lineup tinkering as there usually is, and we’ll see how things go from there.
See ya tonight!