The final game before the Christmas break has arrived, and the Nashville Predators are in Minnesota to take on the Wild tonight from Grand Casino Arena at 7 p.m. CT. This evening’s contest is the second of three meetings between the division rivals this season; the Wild beat the Preds in overtime last month.
Nashville completed a perfect weekend on Sunday with a 2-1 win over the Rangers at Bridgestone Arena. That contest followed a 5-3 victory over the Maple Leafs on Saturday to give the Preds nine wins in their last 13 games overall.
Now, they’ll look forward to the challenge of facing a Minnesota team that recently received a boost with the acquisition of star defenseman Quinn Hughes in a trade from Vancouver.
“We're crawling back into this thing, and it's a lot more fun,” Preds Alternate Captain Ryan O’Reilly said following Sunday’s win. “Everyone's contributing. It's exciting. It's fun coming to the rink. It was pretty dark there for a while; wasn’t fun by any means. It was tough. But give credit, everyone's been working hard, [and we’ve] got a lot of work left. The focus is let’s get this next one before the break. It's going to be a heck of a challenge. But, we're building something. It took a lot longer than we thought, but it's starting to come. We’re still in this fight, and we're going to keep going.”
Preds winger Jonathan Marchessault did not play Sunday and remains day-to-day with a lower-body injury. There were no healthy scratches for Nashville. The Predators did not practice Monday, but they are scheduled to hold a morning skate today before facing the Wild.
The Good Guys:
Filip Forsberg and Steven Stamkos scored for the Preds in Sunday’s win, and Justus Annunen earned the win in net. Forsberg extended his point streak to eight games, and Stamkos scored his 96th career game-winning goal and tied Mats Sundin for 13th place on the NHL’s all-time list.
O’Reilly (10g-20a) leads the club and is the first Preds skater to his the 30-point mark this season. Forsberg has 16 goals and 28 points, while Luke Evangelista has 19 assists and 24 points. Stamkos has 14 goals to his name and is just four away from 600 in his NHL career. Juuse Saros is 13-11-3 in net; Annunen is 2-5-1.
The Opposition:
The Wild had a seven-game win streak snapped on Sunday with a 5-1 loss at home to Colorado. Hughes has three points in his first five games as a member of the Wild. Matt Boldy leads the club with 22 goals and 43 points; Kirill Kaprizov also has 22 goals and 42 points. Marcus Johansson has 11 goals and 27 points; Joel Eriksson Ek has eight goals and 26 points. Filip Gustavsson is 12-8-3 in net; Jesper Wallstedt is 10-2-2.
All-Time Meetings:
The Preds are 47-29-(5)-12 all-time against the Wild, including an 18-19-(3)-7 mark on the road. Nashville is 4-3-3 in the last 10 versus Minnesota and just 1-1-3 in the last five in St. Paul.
In the last meeting with the Wild on Nov. 4, Steven Stamkos scored with one second remaining in regulation to pull the Predators even and tied Mikael Granlund (59:59 on Feb. 27, 2020) for the latest game-tying goal in franchise history.
Notables for Tonight:
The Predators enter Tuesday’s game – their final before the NHL’s holiday break – with a 9-4-0 record in their last 13 contests. Nashville’s nine wins and 18 points are the fourth-most and tied for the fourth-most, respectively, in the NHL since Nov. 26.
Additionally, Nashville’s 47 goals and 3.62 goals per game are both the fourth-most in the League in that time span. The Predators have scored a power-play goal in six of their last eight games, and their penalty kill remains among the League’s best at 82.1 percent, tied for eighth in the NHL; at home, the PK is the best in the NHL at 89.4 percent.
Milestone Watch:
Steven Stamkos is one game from 1,200 and four goals from 600 in his NHL career.
Barry Trotz is one game from 200 as an NHL general manager.
Erik Haula is three assists from 200 in his NHL career.
Jonathan Marchessault is five assists from 300 in his NHL career.
Watch & Listen:
Tonight’s game will be broadcast nationally on ESPN+, Disney+ and Hulu with a 7 p.m. CT start. Max Herz and Hal Gill will call the game on 102.5 The Game and the Predators Radio Network.
