Nashville Predators: Three Positives from Win over Chicago Blackhawks

1. Strong Team Offense from Nashville Predators

The Predators have scored eight goals in two games and are finally starting to find a rhythm offensively.

Against the Oilers, it was defensemen who were responsible for three of the four goals, but against the Blackhawks, it was the other way around.

The forwards were the ones who lit the lamp, and the only defenseman who scored was Roman Josi, who officially passed David Legwand for most points in franchise history with 567. His goal was a beautiful move in front that showcased his talent, and the other point was an assist on Tommy Novak‘s power play goal.

Speaking of Novak, he continued to make a great first impression by scoring in his second game since being re-called from Milwaukee. He has two points in two games and has looked very comfortable since re-joining the lineup after a short stint in Nashville last year.

Aside from that, Cody Glass and Nino Niederreiter combined for a great-looking goal, and the two have started to develop some nice chemistry since being put on a line together.

Mattias Ekholm had an absolutely beautiful feed to Matt Duchene to tie the game in the dying seconds of the middle frame, who is the one player to score multiple goals in the past two games.

Last year, the Predators had trouble getting contributions from all of their lines, but they have gotten some quality offense recently and it has not been just one line. Even in a small sample size that is encouraging in what has been an otherwise bleak offensive season.

2. Nashville Predators’ penalty kill was top notch

This game was not an egregious one from a penalty standpoint, but the Predators did serve their fair share of time in the box yet again. One of these times even included a four-minute double minor to Tanner Jeannot, who is one of the team’s most important penalty killers.

Yet the Predators stood tall throughout all of the time serving penalties. Never did the Blackhawks get a chance that made Juuse Saros struggle, as nearly all of their shots were held to the outside of the slot.

The return of Ryan McDonagh felt like a huge boost for the penalty kill, as the unit had taken a bit of a nosedive recently. Much of that has to do with the large amount of penalties that this team takes, but McDonagh is arguably the Predators’ best penalty killer and he was out for a little over two full weeks.

The team’s penalty kill was a strength early in the season, and they played like that in this game.

3. Goaltending Shines as Usual 

It is almost to the point where we should find other things to write about, because this one just seems automatic. Most, if not all, times that the Predators win, Juuse Saros is at the top of his game, and he was against the Blackhawks holding them to two goals and notching 37 saves.

As the game went on, the Blackhawks got more and more chances, and it felt like many of their second period shots would have been buried or at least tougher to save if they were taken by a better team.

Although both of their goals were scored off of deflections, with the second one being especially chaotic, they had a number of looks in the second period that either flat out missed or good looks taken away by Saros.

In the third period, while the Predators had several good looks of their own, they allowed several point-blank chances to the Blackhawks, most of which came off of counter attacks. It is a reoccurring issue for the team, but Saros bailed them out of trouble and helped preserve the win.

It was already known, but games like this make it especially clear that Saros’ early season struggles were a fluke. No matter how risky of a strategy it is, the Predators are going to depend on Saros to win games, and this one showed why.

Conclusion and Future Outlook

Wins like the one the Nashville Predators had on Monday give people second thoughts, because that was a game that they controlled against a team that is usually a bad matchup for them, and if anything the final result was closer than it should have been. The way they responded should not make anyone any more or less excited about the coming games.

It is good to see the offense do as well as they did in this one, but defensively, it still has to be better. If you play with fire, you will get burned, and I do not see how a better team would not have made the Predators pay more than the Blackhawks did.

Overall, they rightfully won this game because they were the better team, but if the wins moving forward have to be this ugly, the season is not going to get much better. It makes sense to be hopeful but not convinced that this team has turned things around.