Sunday, January 16, 2011

Nashville Splits Home and Home With Chicago

     This weekend, the Nashville Predators have been meeting up with the Chicago Blackhawks with a Home and Home.  Saturday night, Chicago visited Nashville in a very exciting match up with the Predators winning 3-2 in a shoot out decision.  Tonight, Nashville has lost to Chicago 6-3 in another nail biting game that came down to the third period.

     On Saturday night, the bandwagon rolled into Nashville as the 2009-2010 Stanley Cup Champions came to town.  With about 4,000 Chicago fans in attendance, the sold out Bridgestone Arena was very loud, and the Predators fed from the excitement.  The first period seemed to be mediocre for the Predators, and the second period was worse, as Nashville couldn't seem to control the puck at all.  With several stolen cross ice passes, Chicago was able to go up 2-0 at the end of the second.  The first goal came at 14:59 of the first when Chicago was on the power play.  Tomas Kopecky beat Pekka Rinne with a wrist shot, which made all those Chicago fans scream in excitement.  At 04:29 of the second, Viktor Stalberg scored his seventh goal of the season, and most of the Chicago fans in the building thought the game was in the bag. 

     The third period of Saturday's game turned the tides.  Nashville came out of the locker room handling well, and executing plays.  While it did take almost half the third period for Nashville to get on the board, I knew it would come.  The plan was simple; score one goal in the first ten minutes of the period, and one goal in the second.  At 09:46, Jerred Smithson finally got Nashville on the board, and the crowd went totally wild.  The Chicago fans sat down, and realized that the Predators had not given up.  Just after the twelve minutes had past in the third period, Paul turned on the red light to signal a media time out.  The Nashville fans gave a standing ovation, cheering on the team that they are so proud of.  I felt as if the roof was going to cave in due to the energy in the building.  When the light was turned off, the face off came to the left of Corey Crawford, who started in goal for Chicago.  The puck traveled in the blink of an eye beautifully from Joel Ward to Ryan Suter to Shea Weber, who drilled a shot past Crawford.  The crowd jumped to its feet, more excited than I had seen it all year.  The game was tied at the end of regulation, and with no score in the overtime period, it was on to a shoot out.  Marcel Goc scored in the shoot out, and Pekka Rinne stopped all three Chicago shooters to give the Predators the win.

     After the game on Saturday, both teams almost immediately left the arena, and traveled to Chicago to do it all over again.  Tonight's game started out with Nashville's power play, and it was ON FIRE.  Don't hear that very much, do ya.  Welcome Back Martin Erat!  He scored at 02:04 of the first on the power play, to put the Predators up 1-0.  Dave Bolland tipped one in at 06:38 to put Chicago on the board, and J-P Dumont scored on the power play again at 14:15 to give the Predators a 2-1 lead at the end of the first period.

     In the second period, Tomas Kopecky tied the game at 2-2, and then the third period started.  I think the Nashville fans wish that the intermission had never ended.  The period looked good at 03:45, as J-P Dumont scored his second goal of the game to put the Predators up 3-2, but by the half way point of the third period, Nashville figured out that Chicago was not going to play around.  At 09:19, Troy Brouwer scored a power play goal to tie, and then at 09:59, he scored the game winner.  Bryan Bickell added to the tally at 14:08, along with Jonathan Toews at 16:25. 

     Tonight's game was not a total breakdown, and there were some good things that happened along with the bad.  J-P Dumont had two goals in tonight's game, and ended up with a +1 rating.  Just the other day, Dumont was listed as the biggest disappointment in Nashville for this season.  While his numbers still aren't where they need to be, I was happy to see him perform tonight.  Martin Erat scored tonight, which impresses me.  Tonight's game is just his second since coming back from being listed on injured reserve.  Also, the only other Predator that has a + rating tonight happens to be Matt Halischuk.  Matt was recalled from Milwaukee, and I always like to root for the new guy.  What went wrong?  Our defense, including goal tending, was not where it needed to be tonight.  I am usually the first to praise the goaltender, and to blame the defense instead of the net minder when we are getting scored on.  Tonight I saw two goals that were totally Anders Lindback's fault, and I feel like I simply need to point it out.  By no means am I down on Anders, mad at him, or anything of the nature.  I just see one little thing of many that needs to be worked on.  And on the defense, Ryan Suter was faked out of his shorts tonight on one of the third period goals.  I thought it was pretty funny myself.  Nashville simply needs to stay on its game, play THEIR game, and be a little more consistent.  And I do realize that has been said time and time again. 

     It has been a long impressive hockey weekend for me.  As I go back to the daily grind tomorrow, the Predators will as well as they travel to Phoenix for a Tuesday night metting.  Between now and then, they have a lot to work on. 

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