Nashville Predators give fans hope with two big road wins
Wednesday and Thursday night, the Nashville Predators picked up four points while on the road. Facing the best team in the NHL in Washington D.C., the Preds defeated the Capital 5-4 and managed to come from behind in the third to grab the win.
The following night, the team did the same thing as they scored twice in the final frame to force overtime and took down the struggling New Jersey Devils 6-5 in a shootout.
Now, the team will relax today and prepare for a huge game against the Vegas Golden Knights on Saturday night in Smashville.
There are some good things to say about this two game road sweep and a couple of bad ones as well.
First off, the resiliency of the team as a whole. Coming off of the All-Star break, Nashville was soundly beaten by the Toronto Maple Leafs 5-2 and fans began to think that the season was well and truly over.
Head coach John Hynes did well to rally the troops and keep the focus for these two must-win road games.
Another good takeaway from these two games is the offense coming alive. 11 goals in two games in two nights is a stunning mark. Let's hope that this is just the beginning of the offense returning to its form from early in the season.
The bad takeaways from these two wins is of course the defense. Juuse Saros was not very good against the Caps and Pekka Rinne struggled against the Devils as well.
If it wasn't for the great play on the offensive end, these are two games the Preds lose because it is not normal to allow nine goals in two games.
After hosting Vegas, Nashville will head to Canada for four straight which very well could decide if they make the playoffs or not.
