Preds Hope to Rebound Against Ducks after Loss to Kings

Don't Forget the Hockey Tonk Angels Tweet-Up at Bleachers for the game tonight. Details to the right.

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After a miserable outing up the road in Los Angeles on Saturday night, the Nashville Predators (5-4-3) hope to end their four game losing streak against the Anahem Ducks (6-7-1) at the Honda Center this evening.

After sitting atop the Western Conference with 13 points after a win in Tampa two weeks ago, the Preds have yet to sniff out another point and have fallen to eleventh place in the Western Conference. A 2-17-3 all time record at the Honda Center doesn't bode well for an easy turnaround tonight.

The Predators have few options to change their line-up since they still have Ryan Suter, Marty Erat, and Matthew Lombardi on the sidelines with injury.

After getting peppered for four goals against the Kings in half of the game on Saturday, Pekka Rinne will sit this one out and Anders Lindback (3-0-1, 2.29, .929) will get the start. Lindback probably would have started anyway, but the extra half game of action last night was unexpected for him. Jonas Hiller (5-5-1, 2.90, .920) is expected to start for the Ducks.

The Predators and Ducks met on opening night at the Bridgestone Arena with the Predators coming away with a 4-1 victory.

The Ducks have had a rough start to the season but have notched back to back home wins against Pittsburgh and Tampa Bay, two of the better teams in the East. The Ducks are 4-1-1 at home this season.

The Ducks have an advantage on the power play 22.4% to to 12.8% while the teams are similar on the penalty kill with the Preds at 79.5% and the Ducks at 80.0%. The Ducks average double the number of penalty minutes than the Preds, 20.2 to 10.5.

If the Predators are unable to pick up a win tonight, they will not have another opportunity to pick up points until Thursday when they play the Blues in St. Louis. After that, it won't get any easier when the Stanly Cup Champion, Chicago Blackhawks come to Nashville on Saturday.

Other game previews come from Amanda DiPaolo, Josh Cooper, and Dirk Hoag,

From Anaheim comes previews from The Battle of California, the OC Register, Anaheim Ducks Fan Zone, Anaheim Calling, and the LA Times.

Preds-Kings Round-Up...

Here is our game story from last night.

The Tennessean carried the AP Story but also had a couple of postgame quotes from Barry Trotz and Shea Weber at Inside Predators. Josh Cooper shares his postgame pondering too.

From the Predators' blog world come game stories from Dirk Hoag (with advanced stats), Amanda DiPaolo, What the Puck, Cellblock 303, Mark Willoughby,

The Kings side of the story comes from Mayors Manor, Jonathan Moncrief, Kingscast, KingsCourt, Jewels from the Crown, Kings Insider, J.P. Hoonstra, and the LA Times.

More Later...

Buddy Oakes for PredsOnTheGlass