Sweet Sixteen: Predators Rally, Hand Blue Jackets 16th Straight Loss in Nashville, 3-2

Courtesy of ESPN

Taking A Look At My Prediction: In my pre-game thoughts, here’s what I said

“N/A”

I didn’t make any prediction for the last couple of games, because I’m getting a bit superstitious and now I’m 1-1 when not making predictions

Special Teams:
Powerplay – 1 for 2, 50%
Powerplay For The Season – 32 for 210, 15.2%, 27th in the league

Penalty Kill – 3 for 5, 60%
Penalty Kill For The Season – 33 for 224, 85.3%, 4th in the league

Best Play of the Game: David Legwand’s game winner in the waining minutes of the third period. Weber passes to Erat who actually SHOOTS the puck on net and Leggy collects the rebound. THAT is how you finish a play.

Worst Play of the Game: Unfortunately, Shane O’Brien gets picked on for this one. He attempts to clear the puck out of the zone during the penalty kill…but right on the stick of Kris Russell who fires it right by Pekka Rinne to tie the games. Good thinking, just bad play.

Players (Good and Bad) of the Game:
The Good: Jon Blum – Played a perfect game today. Had 1 goal on 1 shot on net…can’t get much better than that. He looks great for a kid who’s only been playing up in the big leagues for less than a week. Gotta hope he keeps it up.

The Bad: Shea Weber – Captain Shea…I know you had a goal and an assist…and you’re the best leader we’ve ever had, but you gotta let stuff go and let the refs take care of it (even if they aren’t going to). You were bleeding and should have left for the rest of the game at the end of the third period, however you stayed out, punched Fedor Tyutin, collected 8 total PIM (4 right there) and let the Blue Jackets get under your skin. You are our Captain, and I know you were just not going to let people push you around and the refs SHOULD have called something for that cheap shot from Hamburger…but you gotta be the better man, and this just wasn’t your best moment in my opinion

My Preds #1 Star: Gotta give it to Mr. Blum tonight. The man is quietly becoming one of out best defenders, even though he’s only been here a short amount of time! He plays smart hockey, much more than we can say about a couple other defenders. It’s amazing to see how he has developed in Milwaukee and I’m glad he’s here to help

Synopsis: Preds fans had to think to themselves coming into the game tonight (and up to the third period), “what happens if we lose this game?”. I’m SO glad we didn’t have to look for an answer to that question. David Poile is going to be burning the midnight oil tonight as he has a lot of decisions to make in search for a POSSIBLE Goc replacement. But, with all of that looming…the Predators got two big points…two HUGE points…two SEASON-SAVING points. The Predators did something they haven’t done much this year, come back when down going into the third period.

The Predators made an effort, something we’ve seen lately but with no results, and scored NOT one, NOT two, but THREE, that’s right folks, THREE GOALS! (All for the low low price of $19.99! Just kidding ). A loss tonight would have sent us reeling into a 4 game road trip with the possibilities of being FAR from the top 8 after it. But now? Now we can relax for ONE day before we head to Edmonton for what I’m going to coin: Super March! (or Smarch)

Remember readers, for us Predators fans: MARCH IS GOOD MARCH IS GOOD MARCH IS GOOD…or, SMARCH IS GOOD! (Except for the weather, stupid Smarch weather )

Next game is Tuesday SMARCH 1st against the Edmonton Oilers at 9:30pm

Thanks for reading!

~KM