11/23/08 - Nashville at Carolina: W 5-2 Final

Observations:

What a first period...five penalties called against us, two extended 5-on-3 opportunitites for Carolina, and we still came out on the winning side of things after twenty minutes of play. Dan Ellis and our penalty killers deserve all the credit for not allowing the Hurricanes to score when we were at such a disadvantage.

Jason Arnott and JP Dumont combined to score the first goal of the game with a nice pass from Greg deVries. I know Trotz is still trying to find the right combinations to generate the most offense but in my opinion, Arnott and Dumont work best together, not apart. Nice goal, boys.

Great save by Elly in the second. He robbed Carolina of a goal on that sequence.

Scott Nichol's goal in the second was very reminiscent of Tootoo's goal on Friday at Tampa Bay. I don't think Cam Ward was expecting a shot like that from Nichol.

Scratch what I said on Friday about Shea Weber not being able to score from the point much longer. What a shot on the power play to put us up by 3 in the second. Then another great cannon at the end of a power play in the third. Seriously though, if I was on the ice when he ripped one of those off his stick, I would duck to get out of the line of fire...or die from impact if the puck hit me.

We played well today but I'm still bothered by our inconsistency. A bad game followed by a great game does not equal a recipe for staying on the winning side of things. I guess my biggest issue here is that we seem to pull ourselves out of a funk after a sub-par performance with closed door meetings or heart-to-hearts between the players. However, we really shouldn't have to do that every other night. If play stayed consistent, all we'd need to do is allow for minor adjustments following the occassional off night. By no means am I complaining about the way we played today but I'm reserving my praise until I see that we can sustain a solid performance over an extended period of time.

The Predators return home to take on the St. Louis Blues on Tuesday night. The game will be nationally televised on Versus; the only nationally covered game for us all season (unless the NHL picks up a Sunday game against Dallas on NBC in February). Puck drops at 6:00pm CST, a full hour earlier than our normal start of 7:00pm, to accomodate the Versus broadcast schedule.