Nashville has seen its share of changes since the outdoor game, so Dallas may get a different look at their familiar foe. On Jan. 6, the Predators fired longtime coach Peter Laviolette in the middle of his sixth season with the club and tapped former Devils bench boss John Hynes as his replacement one day later.
Three months later, the Predators find themselves sitting in fifth place in the Western Conference wild-card race with 72 points, trying to close a two-point gap on Vancouver and Winnipeg (tied at 74 points) for one of the final spots.
Captain Roman Josi leads the Predators in points with 62, and three players -- Filip Forsberg, Nick Bonino and Craig Smith -- are knotted with a team-high 18 goals. Prized offseason addition Matt Duchene has 12 in 63 games.
Despite personnel moves by the Predators, Dickinson said he doesn't expect a game "much different than two teams battling hard for crucial points" as the regular season winds down.
"Since we last saw them, we've seen some coaching changes for them, so we might get a little bit better picture of what they're going to bring at us as far as their game plan," Dickinson said of the back-to-back. "But I think we know each other pretty well. We know what to expect, we know to expect a hard game. They're in a win-now position and we've let three games slide in a row now, so we've got to win as well."
Bowness' message? Be ready.
"We just better be ready to respond," he said. "It's in interesting thing to have these two games Thursday night (and) Saturday afternoon, and both games should be exciting and great hockey."
