Is the Goaltender Battle Over in Nashville? and Thursday Thoughts

The goaltender race was completly one sided last night considering that Anders Lindback played the whole game and Mark Dekanich rode the pine pony for sixty minutes.

My bet is that Barry Trotz's pre-game "slight edge" to Lindback may have been bigger than he let on. Trotz and company got to see what Lindback could do under the pressure of a tie game and then protecting a lead in the closing moments.

I would say that Lindback passed the test and won the competition against Dekanich.. The next round of the competition could possibly be Lindback against the waiver wire or trade acquisition.

I don't think the Predators would pursue a high dollar player like Jose Theodore at this point, but I do think they will be looking for bargains as teams cut down to two goalies.

The Predators would probably covet a player like San Jose's Thomas Greiss who will likely be the odd man out after the Sharks picked up Antti Niemi and Antero Niittymaki in the off season.

Greiss's $550,000 salary would be perfect for the Predators. The Preds would probably have to part with a prospect and a draft choice or possibly a Cal O'Reilly or an Alexander Sulzer in order to pick up the German goalie.

It will be interesting to watch and see what happens over the next few days as you never know what the poker-faced David Poile will find up his sleeve.

Predators- Thrashers Wrap-Up...

Here is our brief story about last night's game.

Predators.com has the AP story and a few comments from Jay Levin who attended the game.

Jim Diamond also discusses the game and what the back-up goalie situation may be.

In the blogs, we found stories by Amanda at Predlines, Jeremy at Section 303, and Dirk at On The Forecheck.

Dirk's super stats uncovered a really ugly defensive pairing where Kevin Klein had a (-11) Corsi while his partner, Aaron Johnson was a (-10). Johnson's poor Corsi may override his two assist offensive effort in the mind of the defense-first, Barry Trotz.

Likewise, the stats showed that Cal O'Reilly had a much better night than Jonas Andersson, who can go to Milwaukee without passing through waivers.

From Atlanta, Thrashers.com has Craig Ramsey's post game presser on video. The AJC also chipped in with a story.

In Pred Nation...

ESPN's Predators preview has ten things you need to know about the team. They have the Preds right where we like to be, "outside the playoffs." It's fun to prove the pundits wrong every year.

Bryan Mullen has a few notes including one about the dressing rooms being incomplete in their repair.

Jeremy Gover looks at the battle for #2 in the Preds net before last night's game.

Dirk Hoag stuck a link to Thom Abraham's interview with Stu Grimson in yesterday's pregame thread.

Jas Faulkner has a camp wrap up until this point at The Hockey Writers. She also discusses earning a spot on the roster.

David Singleton describes a conversation that he had with Barry Trotz and makes a few Preds predictions.

The Cincinnati Cyclones released the schedule for their preseason camp that starts Friday.

Aaron Sims discusses day 2 at the Milwaukee Admirals camp.

Around the NHL...

A week after getting shafted at Drafted, Launy "The" Schwartz finally speaks in this video. When I first saw it, it brought a tear to my eye as it kills me to see a friend suffer an injustice in the name of TV ratings on a so called "reality" show.

Hockey's Future has 26-50 of their latest Top 50 prospects list and it is filled with familiar names. The Preds are represented by Colin Wilson (39), Jon Blum (40), and Cody Franson (50).

After a couple of weeks in limbo since an early leak, Brian Gionta was named the Hab's 28th captain. Since it was done by press release, I'm not sure what the delay was. I really expected some type of ceremony.

Stay Classy has the things to consider when picking an NHL captain.

The Province has another glowing story about ex-Pred Dan Hamhuis.

Oilers Nation predicts three teams from the Northwest in the playoffs. I don't see it. I do think his Oilers will do better than 13th.

Andy Strickland looks at Manny Legacy and Jose Theordore as options for injury bitten teams.

Here's yesterday's waivers that should clear this morning. I don't see any that the Preds would want.

Ex-Pred Mike Santorelli appears to be making headway in sticking with the Florida Panthers.

It appears that the NHL career of Slava Kozlov is over since he has signed in the KHL.

When I was in San Jose over the summer, I was impressed that the Sharks had a form fitting rug to keep folks off the logo in the locker room. The Panthers might want to consider something like that as being preferable to this from @OnFrozenPond: Panthers block off carpeted logo so the hacks don't tromp all over it.

Odds and Ends...

Star Wars is coming back in 3D, one episode at a time starting in 2012. I personally do not like watching movies with the glasses on. The high tech glasses that they had at the theater at The Palms, where we saw Toy Story, were somewhat more tolerable but the cardboard ones are awful.

Are you ready for a little rehab? After looking at these places, I need to be sent to one.

More Later...

Buddy Oakes for PredsOnTheGlass