Monday, February 21, 2011

Predators Are Not the Same Team Without Ryan Suter and Monday Round-Up

The Nashville Predators may have lost more than a game on Saturday night as fans are still waiting to hear a prognosis for Ryan Suter's "upper body injury".

Officially he is "day to day" and that came from Gerry Helper as opposed to the usual announcement from Barry Trotz after the game.

The Predators were 4-6-1 when Suter was out of the line-up earlier this year as the team never seemed to be in sync without the defenseman on the ice.

While most consider Weber to be the star of the team, Suter seems to be the glue that keeps the pairing defensively solid. Weber is indeed a different player when Suter is out of the lineup.

Offensively, Shea Weber had only one goal and one assist in the eleven games that Suter missed. Defensively, the Preds gave up three or more goals in seven of the games.

The loss to Phoenix evened up the season series at two games apiece as the Preds and Yotes will not meet again until a possible playoff match.

The Predators will hit the ice at the Bridgestone Arena for practice this morning and then head to Columbus for tomorrow night's meeting with the Blue Jackets. The Predators are still clinging to fifth place but are only two points out of tenth so Tuesday's game is a must win to stay in the top eight.

I imagine that we will hear of an all clear on Suterthis morning or a callup from Milwaukee as the Preds have been carrying only six defensemen. Probable callups would be Aaron Johnson or Teemu Laakso who have played at the NHL level before. Long shots would be Jon Blum or Roman Josi who are the top prospects in Milwaukee but are less solid defensively.

Predators-Coyotes Round-Up...

Here was our game story from Saturday night with post game video.

Bryan Mullen had his game story, notes column, and something like the postgame ponderings.

David Boclair has his story at The City Paper.

From the blog world reports come from Ryan Porth, Amanda DiPaolo, Mark Willoughby, Sam Page (with his advances stats), Jeremy Gover, and Hockey Night in Nashville.

For the view of the game from the other side check out Arizona Vibe, Five for Howling, Coyotes Examiner, the Arizona Republic, and the Coyotes Aggregator.

In Pred Nation...

Rebecca Dobrinski has a great look back at the Origins of Hockey in Nashville.

David Boclair has a theory of how the Predators may get a first round pick back in this year's entry draft.

Matt Reitz at PHT and Jeremy Gover at Section 303 take a look at Ryan Suter's injury. The extent will not be known until the Preds hit the ice at the Bridgestone this morning.

Amanda DiPaolo is giving away two lower bowl tickets for next Sunday's game with Columbus in a contest at Predlines. She also caught up with Scottie Upshall and Vern Fiddler on Saturday.

Dirk Hoag crunches the numbers on strength of schedule to see who has the toughest last part of the season. He also comments on the Suter injury situation.

During his brief cameo appearance in Nashville we saw this happy group of guys from @dexshow: Me, Toots, and Bro going out to lunch after the ice time. Lookin good!

Mark Dekanich went back to Milwaukee as quickly as he arrived.

Chris Burton takes a look at the Predators' possible interest in Ladislav Smid.

The Milwaukee Admirals played three games in three nights over the weekend and went 2-1 with the highlight being Jeremy Smith's 3-0 shut out on Peoria on Saturday. Admiral's Roundtable has all the stories.

Mark Willoughby has his weekly "My View" where he is pleased that he is no longer a suspect in the cat killing. Go ahead and click it to find out what that means.

Jas Faulkner has her weekly Preds round-up at The Hockey Writers.

Around the NHL...

With the trading activity hearing up on Friday, the best places to check on all the trades is TSN's Trade Centre or NHL.com's Trade Tracker.

Marion Gaborik is the latest to join the concussion parade.

Patrick Hoffman puts forth an All-American team to celebrate Hockey Day in America.

Jeff Z. Klein has an interesting look at where youth hockey is growing. Hint - it is in "non-traditional" markets. Mark Willoughby has a discusiion about the article at The View from 111.

Ryan Porth has an odd statistical ranking of team's strength of victories which tells who is feasting on bad teams. He also has a look back at the 2006 trade deadline in his continuing series.

Emptynetters has the breakdown of who has been stepping up for the Penguins while Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin have been out.

Kevin Allen has ten reasons the Pens should go get Alex Kovalev.

Odds and Ends...

If Bleacher report is indeed the "new media hope" then it's already over.

If you are a CEO, a new study says don't stutter on CNBC or you may cause your stock to drop. Laughing has the opposite effect.

Twitter has suspended Uber Twitter and other programs for changing Tweets. I'm glad I got rid of my Blackberry.

I Am Android looks to be a bit like BBM is for the Blackberry.

More Later...

Buddy Oakes for PredsOnTheGlass

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