RARE LOSS IN REGULATION FOR CANUCKS
Predators prove they are a Western Conference threat, matching the Canucks strength for strength
NASHVILLE – The Nashville Predators played Tuesday a lot like the Vancouver Canucks. Only better.
The Predators made a point, and for the first time in five weeks the Canucks didn’t get any.
Nashville executed like the reigning conference champions, using its special teams and excellent systems play to win 3- 1 and force feed Vancouver its first regulation loss in 14 National Hockey League games.
It was the Predators’ first win here against the Canucks in 369 days, ending a five- game home losing streak that included all three games in Tennessee during Vancouver’s second- round playoff victory in May.
Nashville coach Barry Trotz said that was the most positive aspect of Tuesday’s win. The Predators look like they’ve got a lot of positive nights ahead of them.
They are just as stout defensively as always, but are scoring more goals than they have in five years. And even with the Canucks’ 10- 0- 3 streak since their last regulation loss, Jan. 15 against the Anaheim Ducks, Vancouver leads Nashville by only six points in the conference.
The Canucks’ bigger advantage is that they play in the weak Northwest Division, while Nashville is in the Central Division death trap that includes the Detroit Red Wings, St. Louis Blues and Chicago Blackhawks.
“I don’t think people give them credit for the skill they have, too,” Canuck captain Henrik Sedin said. “If you look at their lineup, from the first line all the way down to the fourth, they’ve got guys who can make plays and score goals. They’re very underrated skillwise.”
They played like the Canucks.
After a handful of early turnovers that Vancouver couldn’t translate into goals — or even particularly good scoring chances — Nashville took care of the puck, their own zone and special teams.
They scored once on the power play, once shorthanded and once at even- strength. Sound familiar?
“That’s a recipe to win in this league,” Canuck winger Alex Burrows said. “You see a lot of teams that win, they play the right way — they get pucks deep, they don’t turn pucks over in the neutral zone. It was a lot different than the last couple of games when we played against Toronto and Edmonton when there was a lot more room.
“[ Nashville] is a good team. They play the right way. Once you do that and frustrate teams by playing well defensively, sooner or later the other team is going to crack and make mistakes. That’s how they create their offence.”
That’s how they beat the Canucks. That and special teams.
Predator Mike Fisher scored on a power play to make it 1- 0 at 5: 42 of the second period and fed a pass to Sergei Kostitsyn to make it 2- 0 at 13: 16 on a perfectly executed shorthanded 2- on- 1. And after the Canucks’ fourth line generated a goal for Dale Weise at 16: 52, the Predators dominated the thirdperiod scoring chances but needed to wait until David Legwand’s even- strength goal with 2: 51 remaining to clinch it.
Vancouver’s usually- reliable defence pairing of Alex Edler and, especially Sami Salo, had a dismal night and were on the ice for all the goals. But this wasn’t the Canucks throwing away a game.
It was one good team beating another by earning it.
The Canucks outshot the Predators 33- 28, but many shots were from medium and long range and Nashville surrendered very few excellent scoring chances.
The Predators are 17- 5- 2 since Christmas. They are for real as a Western Conference threat.
In Nashville’s last nine home games, only Vancouver has won here and that was in a shootout, 4- 3, on Feb. 7. And the Predators just got better, trading last week for behemoth blueliner Hal Gill to improve the team’s depth, experience and penalty killing.
Salo said he couldn’t recall the last time the Canucks lost in regulation. Edler remembered, but only “because I looked it up.”
“I don’t think we expected to run [ the table] the rest of our games,” Vancouver defenceman Kevin Bieksa said. “I thought we played better tonight than our last game in here, which we won. We’re happy with our effort, but we’re in the business to win games. It’s not the end of the world. We had a pretty good stretch here.
“I actually thought they played better the first game and we played better tonight, but the results were different.”
Trotz said special teams were the difference. Nashville’s secondranked power play was 1- for- 3. Vancouver’s power play, the only unit ranked ahead of the Predators’, was 0- for- 2 and yielded Kostitsyn’s shorthanded winner when Fisher skated around Salo at the Nashville blueline.
“The first period, we mismanaged the puck pretty bad but then we got our game together and did a lot of stuff that Vancouver is really good at,” Trotz said when asked about his team’s resemblance Tuesday to the Canucks. “We just couldn’t pull away at the end. We hit a couple of posts and they hung around.”
But instead of the Predators sagging after Weise beat Pekka Rinne late in the second period, Trotz said: “Our mindset was more, ‘ here we come’ instead of here they come.”
“In the third period, they took their game up a notch and they were the better team,” Canuck coach Alain Vigneault said. “They deserved to win.”