Predators Break Hearts and Return Home, POTG Radio Tonight, and Monday Round-Up

Last nights last second loss to the Ducks was a real heartbreaker for the team and for Predator fans. Had it been in the playoffs it would have been very similar to Nashville's game five loss in Chicago during last years post season.

It wasn't quite as much of a gut wrenching, heart stabbing, loss because it was a regular season game and frankly, it was the best game that the Predators had played in two weeks.

I asked the question on Friday whether it is better to win early and then go on a losing streak or to do the losing streak early and then go on a winning streak. I still don't have the answer but now that this streak is up to five games it is looking much more similar to last year's six game losing streak.

There have been blow outs, like Saturday, and then freak incidents like last night, much the same as last seasons streak. This game did appear to be similar to the Ottawa game where the Preds broke the slump last year but the Preds came out with the short stick this year instead of a streak breaking win.

Things do not get any easier this week with the Preds traveling to St. Louis on Thursday and then having the Blackhawks at home on Saturday. After that, they head back out on the road for four more games.

Preds-Ducks Wrap-Up...

The Tennessean went with the AP Story after the game but Josh Cooper picked up a couple of quotes at Inside Predators. Josh also added his postgame ponderings.

David Boclair has his story at The City Paper.

From the blog world reports come from Ryan Porth, Amanda DiPaolo, The View from 111, Dirk Hoag (with his advances stats), Jeremy Gover, AJ at PMFF, What the Puck, and Hockey Night in Nashville.

The other side of the story comes from Kat Kealy, J.P. Hoonstra, The Battle of California, the OC Register, Anaheim Calling, and the LA Times.

POTG Radio...

Tonight on POTG Radio, we will have Mark Willoughby from The View from 111 and Chris Block from the Third Man In.

Mark is very upset and will share his frustration with the Predators play of late. For a preview, you might want to check out his post from last night.

Chris has a great blog and has his own show on BTR and will discuss the Chicago Blackhawks season so far this year and what we might expect on Saturday when the Preds and Hawks meet.

Tune in at the following link at 7 p.m. Central or catch the show on iTunes.



In Preds Nation...

Jim Diamond connects the dots and shows how the Predators drafting Tomas Slovak in the 2001 Entry Draft led to the discovery of Shea Weber.

Jeremy Gover memorializes Barry Trotz's move into fifth place on the number of games with one team.

Michael Latta was the number one star of the day in Junior hockey after his hat trick against the Ottawa 67s.

The inevitable news came from @GoldenGopherHky: Coach Lucia just said Zach Budish has decided to have surgery on his right knee and will miss the rest of the year.

The Milwaukee Admirals beat Chicago 4-1 on Sunday in their last home game of the month.

Around the NHL...

Tonight's Hockey Hall of Fame induction ceremony will be highlighted by the first two women entering the hall. All the festivities can be seen on the NHL Network starting at 6:30 Central.

The Kings held their annual "Tip A King" fundraising event at Nokia Plaza yesterday and it looked like a blast from all the pictures on Twitter.

Phoenix captain Shane Doan will be out for an extened period with a lower body injury sustained in Friday's loss to Dallas. This is not good news for a team that has struggled early in their attempt to return to the playoffs.

Steve Lapore has the latest about the NHL's new TV deal that indicates that ESPN my be back in the picture.

Ryan Porth takes a look at applying the Olympic point system to the NHL in each season going back to the lockout. On SC finalist wouldn't have even made the playoffs.

Mathieu Garon appears to have supplanted Steve Mason in Columbus once again.

Copper and Blue looks at players on their Entry Level Contracts across the league.

Ken Campbell lists a bunch of curious money matters in a post at The Hockey News. As usual he skews the context on the one involving the Predators.

From last week, Bob McKenzie has a really good story about 38 year old Kory Karlander who is the oldest active player in the ECHL.

Odds and Ends...

Kelly Slater captured his 10th ASP World Championship over the weekend when he won the Rip Curl Pro in Puerto Rico. This is an accomplishment that is unparalleled in any individual sport compilation. Here's more from his hometown paper.

The Rockey Mountain Roller Girls beat Oly in a bout that came down to the last skate to be decided to win the WFTDA National Championships in Chicago.

More Later...

Buddy Oakes for PredsOnTheGlass

POTG Podcast, Pred-Stars Preview, and Tuesday Tidbits

Last night's POTG Radio is now up in podcast form by going to the player below or listening on iTunes.

The show was an extended edition since there was too much to cover in the initial hour of the show. It featured Travis Hair of Five For Howling who covers the the Phoenix Coyotes and Matt Reitz of View From My Seats who follows the the LA Kings, and writes about hockey in general.

It was a fun show with wide ranging discussion that covered all aspects of the Coyotes and Kings as well as many other topics of interest in the Western Conference. With the Kings and Yotes being rivals, there was good natured ribbing as you would expect.

We hope that you will check out the show. It was a fun one to do and I think you will enjoy the discussion.




Preds-Stars Preview

The Preds play the Dallas Stars for the first time since Halloween tonight at the Bridgestone Center.

In another of the numerous quirks in the schedule, the Predators played the Stars three times in October and have not played them since. The Preds won 3-2 on opening night in Dallas, went back there 11 day s later and got white washed 6-0, and then defeated the Stars 4-2 at home on Halloween night.

The game will be a match of teams headed in different directions. The Stars find themselves on the outside looking up, nine points behind Detroit with with ten games left to play. The Preds are in sixth place with 89 points and are scrambling for position in the crowded middle of the Western Conference race.

Predators Keys To The Game

Don't Read the News...

The internet has been full of stories about Pekka being first star of the week and what a great run the Predators are on. The team needs to block out all the accolades and remember how they got there in the first place. Looking at accomplishments can wait until the summer.

Step Up for Injured Comrades...

Injuries are playing an active part in the process as you would expect toward the end of a long hard race. Joel Ward appears lost for a week and Jason Arnott probably won't be at full strength if he returns. Once again, it is time for everyone to step up and fill the voids left by folks who aren't on the ice.

Play a Full 60 Minutes...

This sounds like a broken record (does anyone remember what that means, maybe a scratched CD), but the Preds cannot afford to take any shifts off. The Stars are a desperate team and would like nothing moe than to knock off the Preds. Historically, Dallas has always given the Preds fits and tonight will be no different.

The other side of the game tonight can bee seen at The Dallas Star Telegram and the Dallas Morning News.

Programming Note...

I will again be co-hosting Ryan Porth's Red Light District Radio on BTR today at Noon Central. Ryan reports that "we'll talk of the streaking Coyotes and Predators, along with our top breakout players from this season. Bill Kellett, a British Columbia junior hockey scout, will be our guest... we'll touch on some prospects and the Canucks, who he follows closely. Anthony Curatolo from The Hockey Guys will also be making an appearance. A late addition to our lineup is Joe Gladziszewski from InsideCollegeHockey.com. We'll discuss the upcoming NCAA tournament. It should be a great, jampacked show!!

In Pred Nation...

In addition to being the NHL First star, Pekka Rinne received the THN Player of the Week honor.

John Glennon discusses the impact of the Pred's younger players and has the Game at a Glance. John also has the update on Jason Arnott and Joel Ward.

Hockey's Future continues with positions 11-25 of their Spring top 50. This group includes Colin Wilson and Jon Blum.

David Boclair has more on Pekka's latest success.

Paul McCann has a post about the road trip to St. Louis that he organized.

Chris Burton looks at how much the Preds will have to pony up to keep Patric Hornqvist for next season. He also has his game day preview for tonight's Preds-Stars game.

Ryan at the RLD projects the Preds to finish sixth and play Vancouver in this week's Stretch Run.

Around the NHL...

Ken Campbell at The Hockey News has another stir the pot article that someone locally will pick up on and run with with more "Preds Leaving Town" headlines right during the middle of potentially one of the best runs in franchise history.

Adam Schwartz at looks at the Western Conference race at Inside Hockey.

AJ pointed us to a story about Brittanie Cecil, who was killed by a puck at a Blue Jackets game in 2002. Her legacy in the NHL are the high nets that have become standard in all arena end zones.

The bottom fell out in the ratings for NBC's Sunday Bruins-Ranger's match. When the game was announced it appeared to be a real groaner and it was against NCAA basketball so it should not be completely unexpected.

The Flyers got another blow with word that Jeff Carter has a broken foot, most likely ending his season.

Voting continues for the weekly winners of the Ultimate Leader Sweepstakes and award that will eventually lead to the Messier Trophy.

The producers of Forgotten Miracle and Pond Hockey have a College Hockey Picks Tournament. Pick your brackets to win prizes.

Kevin Greenstein talks dirty hits and respect at Inside Hockey TV.

One of the longest fights I've ever seen was during Saturday's Blues-Devils game between Cam Janssen and Pierre-Luc Letourneau-Leblond. It went on for almost two minutes with plenty of good blows.

Odds and Ends...

From @ApoloOhno: CRAZY @juliannehough I might be taking a detour through Nashville for a meeting..I'll be there for less than 1 day...are you around!@@??? Look for the paparazzi to spot Apolo Ohno.

The last three versions of the Tennessee Blue Book are online. This is the who's who of folks in Tennessee state government.

Maybe someone else is as slow as I am and will find this post on how to make notes on your Blackberry while you are on a call.

More Later...

Buddy Oakes for PredsOnTheGlass

POTG Radio Tonight and Weekend Wrap-Up

With the Western Conference race tightening up and the Phoenix Coyotes tied for the lead in points, we can assume that many folks probably think hell has frozen over.

Tonight on POTG Radio we will discuss that possibility and many more as we focus on the wild, wild Western Conference. We will have guests that are bitter rivals from the Coyotes and Kings.

First up, we will have Travis Hair of Five For Howling who covers the the Phoenix Coyotes and has joined us many times in the past. Previously, most of the talk has been about ownership and business related stuff, but this time hockey will be front and center.

We will also have Matt Reitz of View From My Seats who follows the the LA Kings. Matt's site is one of the best hockey sites on the internetand he has recently added a few new writers to his stable. We will touch on that and also get in to where the Kings will finish up once it all shakes out.

It should be an interesting show. Please join us Live at 7 p.m. Central or on podcast.



Preds - Blues Wrap-Up...

Here is our story from last night.

The Tennessean has the AP story since John Glennon's plane had mechanical trouble but John comes through with his postgame ponderings.

David Boclair reports in from the City Paper.

In the blogs there are posts from Forechecker and the View from 111.

Puck Daddy was feeling a little guilt about making a Preds joke on BTR's The Program last night so he named Dustin Boyd the first star of the day. I now have a six pack of Dr Pepper riding on the Preds making the second round.

The other side of the game story comes from the St. Louis Posts-Dispatch and the Belleville Democrat.

In Pred Nation...

Mark Willoughby has a great story about social media in hockey and the Islander's new Director of Social Media, Dani Muccio.

Jim Diamond has his weekly prospect round-up at the Examiner.

Cody Franson and Chet Picard make Hockey's Future top 50 list as they reveal 26-50.

The Admirals beat the Aero's yesterday 2-1 in overtime. Short Shifts has the story.

Her's a neat story from Jessica Bliss on Craig "Parner" Baugh.

Around the NHL...

The NCAA tournament seed were announced yesterday. Here is a page with all the pairings and brackets. It's great to see UAH represent the non-traditional area of the country.

An Interesting analysis of assists by goalies is at Puck Prospectus.

Seam Leahy has the Five Reasons Brian Metzer loves hockey.

More Later...

Buddy Oakes for Preds OnTheGlass

A Dismal Day Game in Nashville and POTG Radio Tonight with Jim Diamond and Josh Sacco

The Nashville Predators provided a disappearing act during Sunday's third period that led to a stunning 4-2 loss to Vancouver and cut their lead over Detroit to one point with 17 games remaining. Calgary is just two points back of the Preds and they are itching to jump into the top eight too.

While the Preds turned in two dismal performances in a row over the weekend, they have fallen five behind Los Angeles and Colorado who each have 80 points. A fifth or six seed would give the team a much better chance of making out of the first round, but that goal seems much further away at this point.

The Preds are leaving on a four game road trip to Atlanta and the West coast and need a complete turn around in order to make a move in the Western Conference standings (or even hang on to the eight spot).

POTG Radio Tonight...

We have a great show lined up for this evening with two excellent guests. First up we will have Jim Diamond who has covered the Predators since the early years of the franchise. He is a member of the Professional Hockey Writer's Association and covers the Predators for The Examiner, the Associated Press and various other news outlets.

We will also have five year old Josh Sacco, who became famous for his recreation of Herb Brooks' speech from the movie Miracle. Josh and his family recently attended the Olympics, courtesy of The Ellen Show where he got to meet the USA men's hockey team, Mike Eruzione, and a bunch of other folks. He also did video updated for the Pred's web site.

We are really looking forward to speaking with tonight's guests and we hope you will join us live or on podcast at the BTR site or on iTunes.



Predators -Canucks Round-up...

Here is our game story with post-game interviews from yesterday.

John Glennon has his game story, notes and postgame ponderings. David Climer was also at the game and has commentary on the Preds playing at home.

David Boclair has his City Paper game story.

Our friend, Wes Cunningham, has a photo review of the game at Inside Hockey.

In the blog world, there are stories from Mark Willoughby, Brandon Felder, Forechecker, Big Kev, and See Puck City.

The other side of the story comes from the Vancouver Sun and the Province.

If you missed it, here is the video of the rare fight that Dan Hamhuis had with Alex Burrows. Dan has shown renewed interest in his game since sticking with the Preds at the trade deadline.



In Pred Nation...

Jim Diamond has his weekly prospects round up and an article about running the Music City half-marithon in support of Brent Peterson and Parkinson's research. He will discuss more of this tonight on POTG radio.

AJ has the fifth part of his mini-series, this time discussing Wade Belak.

Rachel from What the Puck catches up on her Predator news.

Short Shifts has the story of the Admirals losing a rough and tumble meeting with Peoria 4-2.

David Boclair discusses David Poile's poker face and the recent trade deadline.

Mark Willoughby's weekly "View" has some grim information that everyone should be aware of.

Barry Trotz will be featured on an episode of "Under the Lights" on FSTN. Check here for times.

Welcome to Twitter @jtootoo22. It's not officially verified but it is him, best we can tell.

Around the NHL...

Our good friend Dahlia Kurtz of Hockey54 has a great story at the Toronto Star about her friend Matt Cook, a Canadian Sledge Hockey player who has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. There are a couple of videos with Matt and Launy Swartz at the site also.

Brian Metzer has moved to a new site that will give him more flexibility to cover a wider range of topics beyond the Pens. Check it out! Brian is a good one.

J T Bourne has an interesting feature on "Show Dough."

Deadline "fire sales" can pay off. See what Ryan at the RLD explains about the 2004 Washington Caps.

Ex-Pred Scotty Nichol got slammed by Maxim Lapierre on Thursday night. There was no reason for this type of hit after a shot. I can't believe no one stuck up for Scotty.

Odds and Ends...

How about the Academy Awards show? I was really glad to see Sandra Bullock win the best actress award.

Our friend Amy Dawson found this gem with Samuel L. Jackson in a Krystal commercial.

More Later...

Buddy Oakes for PredsOnTheGlass