Tough Road Loss for Nashville Leaves Wildcard Spot Up for Grabs

Despite some strong play up and down the lineup, the Nashville Predators failed to come out of Rogers Place with a point. What exactly happened?

Despite some strong optimism coming into this matchup that the Nashville Predators could win three games in a row for the first time since late October, that ended up not being the case.

After gaining an early 2-0 lead, the Predators still kept up sustained pressure and almost had a few goals on one stellar power play (wow, that’s a little weird to hear), but ultimately gave up three-straight goals to lose in regulation, squandering a chance to be tied for a wildcard spot with two games in hand over the Winnipeg Jets.

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The standings are a mess and the Predators are far from out of the race; in fact, they’re very much in the thick of it. But I saw a lot of people treating this game like it was the same old story of the team not playing a full 60 minutes. I personally disagree there. Let’s take a look at why.

Did the Predators play a full 60?

By all accounts, yes, yes they did. As we can see by

the game flow chart below (courtesy of Natural Stat Trick), Nashville largely won the shot attempt battle, and while Edmonton did turn the tide a bit in the third period, the Predators kept it pretty even the whole way.

The reason Edmonton had such a massive shot advantage should be pretty evident to anyone who watched the game, but for proof I’ll line up the 5v5 SVA game flow next to our All-Situations one.

What exactly are you looking at here? Well, the Predators managed to own the xG totals pretty much the entire game. They heavily out-chanced Edmonton at 5v5. Where the issue arrived was on the penalty kill.

The Oilers got away with a number of missed calls and had the benefit of some really weak officiating, getting a McDavid penalty nullified by an iffy at-best embellishment call on Mikael Granlund, a missed call on Yamamoto going against Dante Fabbro instead, and a Draisaitl drawn trip that should’ve been called for embellishment with the precedent set by the Granlund call.

I’m not usually one to complain about officiating, and it isn’t the only reason the Predators lost this game, but it certainly was a key factor. Consistency shouldn’t be a lot to ask of professional refs, but apparently it is.

Standouts

For the Predators, I’d have to say the entire Ryan Johansen line and Craig Smith individually. Johansen lead the team with 1.05 (!) ixG in all situations, while Granlund, Smith and Duchene finished with .56, .32, and .28 respectively.

Granlund had a few atrocious calls going against him, but he remained a noticeable impact player (34.89 xGF% Rel at 5v5 SVA, first for the Preds) and almost had a stellar goal after dancing through Edmonton’s entire defense. Smith scored a goal, so that was good, and he also had a 22.90 CF% Rel (5v5 SVA), good for best on the team.

As fro the Oilers, you could obviously point to Leon Draisaitl, who drew a number of penalties and scored two goals, including the game winner. Draisaitl led all Oilers with .69 ixG in all situations, and rocked Nashville with a 35.19 CF% Rel and 48.58 xGF% Rel (5v5 SVA), good for first and third on the team.

Someone who may have flown a little under the radar for his stellar performance was Mike Smith, who came out of this game with some pretty meh stats. He shut down a Predators team rapidly snowballing towards a dominant win by committing larceny on some power play attempts, and made the saves the Oilers needed to stay in the game and eventually come back.

Where do the Predators stand?

The Wildcard race is very crowded, but still easily within reach for Nashville. The first wildcard spot is held by the Flames, who have 62 points in 56 games played. The second wildcard spot is Winnipeg with 61 points in 56 games.

The Coyotes sit with 61 points in 57 games played, and the Predators have 59 in 54 games played. The upcoming stretch will be crucial for Nashville asserting itself as a true playoff team.

The Predators play the Vancouver Canucks Monday @ 9 PM Central Vancouver is currently in the top spot in the Pacific Division with 65 points.