Thursday, March 18, 2010

Thursday Thoughts and a Look at the Predators - Wild Game Tonight

The Nashville Predators, who are wanting to move up in the Western Conference standings play the Minnesota Wild, who are desperately holding on to the slimmest of chances of at a playoff berth, tonight at the Bridgestone Arena.

The Predators have not played well against the Wild for the last couple of seasons. This year the Preds are 1-1-1 with the Wild, winning their first meeting on October 28 in Minnesota, and losing 5-4 in overtime on December 2, again in Minnesota. The Preds lost their prior meeting in Nashville 5-3 on December 5.

Minnesota is playing some of their best hockey of the season, having won three in a row and having gone 5-2-2 in their last nine games. The Preds have also won three in a row.

Josh Harding will start in net for the Wild while Pekka Rinne hopes to continue his recent run of strong play for the Preds.

Preds Keys to the Game

Play with Energy for Sixty Minutes...

The Preds got away with one on Tuesday night against a very strong Flyers team primarily due to stellar goaltending by Rinne. The team needs to shake off their weariness and hit the ice with a lot of jump and never look back this evening.

Power Play Needs to Return...

The Preds can't be faulted for lack of any power play offense on Tuesday since they never had a man advantage. The Wild are stingy with their penalties so when the Preds do get a chance, they need to take advantage of the opportunity.

No Complacency on Home Ice...

The Predators still have one more win on the road than they do at home and have a chance to even those totals tonight with a victory. Too many times this season, the Preds have allowed lesser teams to stay in the game far too long when they should be trying to drive the final nail in the coffin. Playing with an early lead can take the will out of the opposition and make them play catch up the rest of the game.

In Pred Nation...

Bryan Mullen reveals that he Preds have nine players with at least 30 points. Only Washington, with ten, has more. Here is the game at a glance.

Here's an update from Mike Russo on the traveling party for tonight's Wild game with the Preds.

Jim Diamond has the story of the Hobey Baker finalists being announced later today. Preds prospect, Blake Geoffrion will find out if he made the top ten.

Dirk has an analysis of the league's least valuable player that has a young Predator in the worst pack. They also have tonight's game preview.

Steve Sullivan is asking for a little help from his friends in the Kraft Hockeyville competition. @Sullivan26: "Proud of my hometown of Timmins. Top 12 of Kraft Hockeyville 2010. Vote Here."

Toots advises of another no-call from Tuesday night @Jtootoo22: Broke my nose last night with a high stick by Pronger. No biggie though as its been broken many other times.

Jas Faulkner has a final look at Tuesdays action against the Flyers.

From the Rink has a story about Patric Hornqvist blossoming as a late round pick.

From @Short_Shifts: Admirals sign 2007 Nashville draft pick Ryan Thang to ATO. Forward will join team for Texas road trip.

Potential future Pred's owner W. Brett Wilson is interviewed about the season finale of Dragon's Den, a popular show in Canada that he is involved with. We have been trying to hook up with Wilson to talk hockey on POTG Radio and he has agreed to come on "in the fall."

Around the NHL...

Another night, another controversial call on James Wisniewski's hit on Brent Seabrook. If the only thing ever discussed on NHL Home Ice is whether something is a head shot and how many games they will be suspended, fans will be tuning out quickly. This stuff is getting old.

In Russia, the players are getting beat up by the fans. Here a story and video.

There is another report that the Thrashers are for sale.

Sports Illustrated has a repost of an old story from a hockey riot that occurred in Montreal on St. Patrick's Day in 1955. All the issues of the day in the NHL pale in comparison to this story. At least no one has set off a tear gas bomb at a game this season.

Good news from Steve Lapore on NBC's playoff coverage... They are actually doing two games a weekend for the first three weeks. Beware of the May 1 game. If it heads to double OT, the Kentucky Derby looms in the way.

Dater has advice for Alex Ovechkin for a makeover.

One of our regular pit stops is Stay Classy. Kevin Burgandy posts today that he is going to take a break for a while. Thanks for all you good work and we'll look forward to the return.

Yesterday was the one year anniversary of the Tweet that started the NHL concept. Dani has come a long way since then.

Odds and Ends...

So what is the most important part of the work day? Lunch of course. Chuck Milam points us to a spot to make that decision of where to eat much easier.

Here is an interesting sortable chart from the Washington Post on the House health care vote.

So will we need a QR code T-shirt in the future to link to our relevant websites and data?

From PeopleOfWalmart comes ThatsMyBoss.

More later...

Buddy Oakes for PredsOnTheGlass

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