The Goal That Almost Was and Wednesday Wrap-Up

The Predators took care of business last night disposing of the Oilers in a 3-1 match that was pleasantly uneventful for the 15,745 fans in attendance. It was a time to exhale and watch the team play without the tension of going down to the last second in a nail biter like so many recent games.

One play that appears nowhere on the scorecard that could have been awesome came in the final minutes with Edmonton having the goalie pulled. Pekka Rinne had the puck with a little room in front of the net and he tried to loft it over the Oiler defense toward the empty net at the far end of the ice.

Rinne was laughing as he explained the play, "I tried to go for it. Unfortunately, it hit the guys arm. I thought that I had pretty good wood on it but we will see. Maybe next time."

In the postgame, Barry Trotz said that he was thinking, "Get it over that guy and I hope you score kid." He said further, "He's been so good, that we gave him that privilege."

It just goes to show that in the midst of a heated Western Conference playoff race the team and the coach can find time to have a little fun on the ice and appreciate what each other have accomplished so far in this long 82 game season.

Predators-Oilers Round-Up...

Here is our game story from last night with post game video.

Josh Cooper had his game story, notes column, and postgame ponderings.

Jim Diamond has a story about a new hand signal used by referee Stephane Auger near the end of last night's game. He also has his game story.

David Boclair has his story at The City Paper.

From the blog world reports come from Ryan Porth, Amanda DiPaolo, Mark Willoughby, Chris Burton, Jeremy Gover, Predatorial, Fang Finger Fever, and Hockey Night in Nashville.

From oil country comes the game stories from Edmonton Journal, Edmonton Sun, The Copper and Blue, OilersNation, and Oil on Whyte.

Audio clips from the Predators come from Marty Erat, David Legwand, Patric Hornqvist, and Pekka Rinne. From Edmonton comes clips from Coach Tom Renney, Renney part 2, Devan Dubnyk, and Linus Omark.

Programming Note...

Today on RLD Hockey Radio, Ryan Porth has lined up a pair of quality guests. First up will be Kevin Allen from USA Today to touch on the Matt Cooke suspension and playoff races. He will be followed by Dennis Bernstein of The Fourth Period to discuss the tight Western Conference race. Join us for what promises to be a fun show at noon Central.

In Pred Nation...

Pekka Rinne is up to number 5 overall and second for goalies in the TSN player rankings.

Ryan Porth says the cure for the Predators injury bug is the play of the Preds' youngsters.

Josh Cooper has an update on Marcel Goc who may never play another game for the Preds since he will be an unrestricted free agent at the end of the season.

Tyler Davis looks at the contributions of the Predators' youthful players at NHL Hot Stove.

Here's an odd way to have a retirement announcement from @hnicradio: Wade Belak from the Predators confirms to @jeffmarek and @bjaffe on @hnicradio that he has retired. Loves Nashville & working for team

Jeremy Gover from Section 303 led the drive to collect hats to honor Blake Geoffrion.

Milwaukee beat Oklahoma City 4-3 in a shoot out last night at the Bradley Center.

For those who missed the Lifetime "Coming Home" show that featured the "goalie" at the Preds' game, here is the full episode on the internet.

Hockey on the Fly...

Last Night, Ryan Porth and I had the opportunity to meet Andre Delsol who is about a third of the way through visiting all 30 NHL Arenas in 29 days. You can follow his travels at his Hockey on the Fly site or on Twitter at @hockeyonthefly.

He is getting a good view of the whole league during the playoff race and Ryan and I were jealous. We'll hear more from Andre when the trip is over as he has agreed to join us on RLD Hockey Radio for an episode. We are looking forward to that.

Around the NHL...

Matt Cooke is claiming to be reformed. Hopefully he will remember what that means a month from now or next season.

RLD Hockey has the latest version of The Stretch Run. He also has the records since the All-Star break which is interesting.

Due to his new gig at Versus, Steve Lapore is scaling back at Puck The Media. Here is his first post at Versus where he looks at the spotlight on Matt Cooke's hit on national TV.

Ed Duhatschek analyzes whether visor use should be mandatory in light of the Manny Malhotra injury.

Bad news for the Kings as Justin Williams is out for the season with a dislocated shoulder.

The Goalie Guild has the latest update to their NHL Goalie Depth Charts which is an incredible undertaking. It ranks every goalkeeper in all 30 organizations.

From @AnaheimDucks: #NHLDucks goalie Jonas Hiller traveling with team on upcoming 3 game road trip. Hiller: "I'm feeling better every day." More to come later. Ducks will be here on Thursday night. Bet on seeing Dan Ellis or Ray Emery.

Rebekah Sanders takes a closer look at what the revised Matthew Hulsizer plan actually means to the City of Glendale and Why the Goldwater Institute is still opposing it.

HBO's 24/7 series that followed the Pens and Caps before and during the Winter Classic garnered three Emmy nominations.

The QMJHL announced the nominees for the post season awards and the most curious one is Kirill Kabanov's nomination for the Humanitarian Award. He is a great talent that has had numerous issues in his junior career so I don't get how that makes him a humanitarian. I's like to hear more.

Odds and Ends...

Happy Blog Birthday to our friend Dahlia Kurtz who's Always Write! site is one year old. She is an incredibly talented writer based in Toronto who covers a wide variety of topics.

For those wanting to jump on a tablet, the new larger Samsung Galaxy Tabs have been announced.

Here is something interesting from the New York Times. A higher grade home movie of Babe Ruth on a barnstorming tour in October 1927 has been found.

How valuable is Linkedin to finding a new job. This post says it is a must. It may be the most under-appreciated platform of all the social media tools.

Here's video proof of Bruce Springsteen teaming up with the Dropkick Murphys for a trio of songs.

More Later...

Buddy Oakes for PredsOntheGlass