The Road Trip Winds Down As Nashville Falls To Calgary 3-1

     The score last night was 3-1 in Calgary as Nashville played its next to last game on this long road trip.  The Predators are now 3-2 on the trip so far.  Last night Nashville appeared to be on their heels for most of the game, and it looked as if no one on the team had gotten any sleep after the win in Edmonton on Sunday night.  The Flames, however, played an excellent game, worked as a team, tallied twice on the power play, and got the two points last night. 

     It appeared as if momentum could not get going our way.  I do understand that Nashville can't win every game, and if they did it honestly wouldn't be near as much fun to watch.  Calgary scored the lone first period goal at 10:14 after a funny bounce from Curtis Glencross that Pekka Rinne could not do anything about.  Shea Weber dove into the net to attempt a save, but the puck crossed the line.  In the first period, the pressure from Calgary was impressive.  Even when the Flames were a man down, it appeared as if Nashville could never get a man into position.

     In the second period the Predators had hope when David Legwand wristed one past Mikka Kiprusoff at 10:32.  The Flames refused to go away however, and made it 2-1 at 13:01 with Jarome Iginla's power play goal. 

     Even though Nashville did not score in the third, I thought it was by far the team's best period.  Nashville came to life on the power play and pressured well, but were not able to get it done.  I was most impressed with Marcel Goc; his ability to dig the puck out of the corner is impressive and he had 14:39 of even strength ice time last night.  Even though I thought Nashville was finally in the game, Calgary made it 3-1 on the power play with a goal from Brendan Morrison in tic tac toe style at 14:18. 

     Nashville did pull Pekka Rinne last night, but time ran out before the extra attacker could give the Predators a chance.  JP Dumont did not play last night after he was hit with a stick in the neck in Edmonton.  Dumont's penalty killing abilities were missed last night.  Nashville visits Vancouver on Wednesday to wrap up their road trip.  They return to Nashville on February 1 after the All-Star break.