The Nashville Predators proceed their prolonged street journey by visiting a well-known foe within the Edmonton Oilers and hope to reverse the current domination by their foes from up north.
The Edmonton Oilers
The Oilers (8-7-1) are off to a different ‘sluggish’ begin, however regardless of that, the Oilers are already 2-0-0 towards Nashville this season, beating the Predators by scores of 4-2 on October seventeenth and 5-1 on Halloween. Connor McDavid, who missed video games earlier this season, is again and is on a tear, posting seven factors (2 targets, 5 assists) in his final two outings towards the Islanders and Canucks. The truth is, his 4 level effort towards New York put him at 999 profession factors and McDavid is on the lookout for a historic 1,000th level tonight towards Nashville.
Nevertheless, whereas McDavid is arguably probably the most dominant participant within the NHL, he’s not the best menace to the Predators. That title belongs to the one and solely Leon Draisaitl. Draisaitl has performed 28 video games towards Nashville within the final decade, and has 27 targets and 46 factors in these contests. After selecting up only a single help within the first contest, Draisaitl picked up two targets and an help within the second recreation. And Draisaitl will put Nashville’s highly-ranked penalty kill to the take a look at, as 15 of his 27 targets have come on the ability play (in addition to one short-handed purpose). Much more spectacular, Draisaitl’s 27 targets have come on simply 79 photographs, a profession taking pictures proportion of 34.2% towards the Predators.
Goaltender Calvin Pickard (3-2-0) appears to get the beginning towards the Predators, posting a save proportion of 88.6%. Nashville appears to make the most of Edmonton’s woeful particular groups, the place they’re twenty second on the ability play and lifeless final on the penalty kill.
The Nashville Predators
After the Predators began the season 0-5-0, Nashville had a small bounce again, selecting up back-to-back wins over Chicago and Columbus an a victory over Colorado of their first matchup, however have solely gained as soon as since, going 1-3-1 of their final 5, with their lone victory coming over Utah.
Nashville is led by the same old suspects, as Filip Forsberg (8 targets, 5 assists), Roman Josi (1 purpose, 10 assists) and Ryan O’Reilly (3 targets, 7 assists) lead the workforce in scoring, because the highly-touted free agent additions have faltered since becoming a member of Nashville. Jonathan Marchessault (3 targets, 6 assists) and Steven Stamkos (4 targets, 4 assists) have began sluggish for 2 gamers who have been 40-goal scorers simply final season.
Since dropping Dante Fabbro to waivers to Columbus, Nashville has referred to as up Adam Wilsby from Milwaukee, who posted one purpose and two assists in eleven video games for the Admirals previous to his call-up this week. His arrival hopes to bolster a struggling protection corps, because the Predators are twenty fourth within the NHL in targets allowed per recreation (3.31).
Juuse Saros (4-7-2) seems to get the beginning tonight, nevertheless his 91.1% save proportion reveals a greater efficiency this season than his report suggests.
How one can Watch
Tonight’s recreation begins at 8 pm Central Time on the FanDuel Sports activities Community in addition to 102.5 The Recreation.
