Preds Return Home with Chance to Advance in Game Six

The goal was to finish the job in Game Five. Unfortunately for the Nashville Predators, the opposition didn't let that happen.
So when the St. Louis Blues came away with their second win of the series, a 2-1 win on Friday night, the focus immediately shifted to the next chance for the Preds to advance.
That'll come Sunday afternoon at Bridgestone Arena in Game Six, and with a 3-2 series lead over the Blues, the Predators will try for their second handshake line of the spring in a venue where they're 8-0 in the postseason dating back to Game Six of Round One of 2016.

Nashville Head Coach Peter Laviolette stated in his postgame media address after Game Five that his team had some things to look at in the video room on Saturday. Now that they've done so, they know what needs correcting and how they might go about doing so.
"We've just got to find ways to create more offense," center Ryan Johansen said. "Looking at the tape this morning, going over some stuff, I think our forwards just have to do a better job of creating offense and finding ways to score goals. We played pretty solid defensively and did a good job on the penalty kill, so we just have to find ways to score a couple goals."

Nashville only tallied once on Friday night, their lowest total since Game One of the First Round against Chicago. Laviolette said Saturday that while his special teams were impressive on Friday night - a perfect 5-for-5 on the penalty kill and a power-play goal - their 5-on-5 play could be better.
"We just didn't play our game last night in St. Louis, and credit to [the Blues] too, they're a great hockey team and they made it difficult for us to play our game," Johansen said. "We have a really good hockey team over there that we're playing against, and it's going to take our best for us to win. That showed in the two games that they beat us, and we haven't been our best. That's why we're just talking about our focus and preparation, making sure we're all on our game to give ourselves the best chance to be successful."
So now that St. Louis has cut the series lead down, is there any more pressure on Nashville than there already was?

"There's always pressure," Laviolette said. "Whether there's an expectation before this series to move on, there was an expectation last night, there'll be an expectation tomorrow and moving forward there's always going to be expectations. Those are inside of our room; we expect to do things and we didn't get it done last night."
The numbers didn't fall in Nashville's favor in Game Five, but in the digits that matter most at this point, the Preds still have an edge. And with a chance at history tomorrow in front of their home crowd, they'd love nothing more than to send those clad in Gold out onto Broadway with another reason to celebrate.
"We have a 3-2 series lead, and we're at home where we're 4-0 in these playoffs," Johansen said. "We can't wait to get out there and feed off of that energy and atmosphere in that building."