The Nashville Predators have made it to the province of Alberta, and they’ll take on the Calgary Flames tonight from the Scotiabank Saddledome at 6 p.m. CT. This evening’s contest is the third and final meeting between the two clubs this season; the Preds have defeated the Flames twice in Nashville thus far.
After a victory in Las Vegas to close out 2025, the Predators began the 2026 calendar with a 4-1 loss in Seattle on New Year’s Night. The visitors certainly had impressive stretches against the Kraken, but a tough start did the Preds in, and they’ll look to correct that tonight in Calgary.
“Well, we're having a hard time understanding their starts and trailing by two goals and the energy it spends to get back,” Preds Head Coach Andrew Brunette said following the loss. “Like I said, the schedule gets you a little bit sometimes during the year. They were waiting for us for a couple days, and they showed early in the game. I thought the second and third period, we were the better team. We just had trouble scoring, and it's hard in this League to chase, especially on the road. We've done a good job the last two times to come back, and tonight we didn't have it.”
Nashville’s lineup remained unchanged on New Year’s Night with Jonathan Marchessault remaining out with a lower-body injury. Justin Barron was a healthy scratch against the Kraken.
The Predators did not practice on Friday after their back-to-back set and three games in four days.
The Good Guys:
Roman Josi scored the lone Nashville goal on Wednesday in Seattle, and Juuse Saros took the loss in net. Ryan O’Reilly (11g-24a) leads the club with 35 points, followed by Filip Forsberg with 16 goals and 31 points. Luke Evangelista has 24 assists and 30 points, while Steven Stamkos leads the team with 18 goals. Saros is now 15-13-3; Justus Annunen is 3-5-1.
The Opposition:
The Flames will begin the new year tonight having won three straight and five of their last six overall, including a 5-1 victory over Philadelphia on New Year’s Eve. Nazem Kadri (8g-24a) leads the team with 32 points, followed by Rasmus Andersson (8g-18a) with 26 points and Mikael Backlund (10g-15a) with 25 points. Dustin Wolf is 14-14-2 in net; Devin Cooley is 4-4-2.
All-Time Meetings:
The Preds are 45-29-(4)-13 all-time against the Flames, including a 20-15-(3)-5 mark on the road. Nashville is 6-4-0 in the last 10 versus Calgary and 3-2-0 in the last five at Scotiabank Saddledome.
The Predators have only lost seven times in regulation to the Flames since Dec. 15, 2015 (16-7-6) and have picked up at least one point in 31 of their last 42 games (23-11-8).
Milestone Watch:
Erik Haula is one game from 800 in his NHL career.
The Predators are one game from 2,100 as a franchise.
Steven Stamkos is two goals from passing Jari Kurri for the 21st-most in NHL history.
Watch & Listen:
Coverage for this evening’s contest begins at 5:30 p.m. CT with the Predators LIVE! pregame show on FanDuel Sports Network South, hosted by Lyndsay Rowley. Play-by-play announcer Willy Daunic and Chris Mason will have the call on the television side. Max Herz and Hal Gill will call the game on 102.5 The Game and the Predators Radio Network.
