After spotting the Minnesota Wild a 2-1 lead in their opening game of the 2019-2020 NHL season the Nashville Predators’ offense came roaring to life in the third period. Nashville scored four goals to take a 5-2 win and saw the signing of free agent Matt Duchene pay immediate dividends as he picked up three assists in his first action in a Predators’ uniform. They’ll be back in action tonight as they welcome the Detroit Red Wings to Bridgestone Arena.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Detroit Red Wings have been one of the NHL’s most dominant teams over the past couple of decades but have fallen on hard times in recent seasons. The Wings ended their downright insane run of 25 straight years in the playoffs when they missed the postseason in 2016-2017. They’re now on a postseason drought of three years during which they’ve been consistently mediocre, never winning more than 33 games and finishing with 79,73 and 74 points. They haven’t won a playoff series since 2013 and they’ve now gone over a decade since the last won the Stanley Cup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are signs of life in Detroit, however, with the team bringing in franchise legend Steve Yzerman as GM. Yzerman is more than just a legacy to keep the seat warm–he was instrumental in building the Tampa Bay Lightning into one of the nastiest teams in the league. His return makes this a year of transition and there’s still some house cleaning of high priced contracts from the Ken Holland regime. There’s also a lot of young talent on hand such as Dylan Larkin and Tyler Bertuzzi but Yzerman has declined to give a timeline as to when he expects the Wings to be back in the playoff hunt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One longtime Red Wings fixture that is still in the immediate mix is goaltender Jimmy Howard who’ll get the start here against Predators’ backup Juuse Saros. One of Nashville’s big strengths now is how little drop off there is when Pekka Rinne gets a night off. The 24 year old Saros is from the same ‘Finnish goaltending factory’ that produced Rinne and is his heir apparent. Of course Rinne is just a season removed from a Vezina Trophy win so he’s not going anywhere yet. Saros is a more agile goalie than Rinne–that’s by necessity as at 5’10” he doesn’t cover as much real estate as the monstrous 6’5″ Rinne.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Wings have actually given the Predators fits in recent season. They won both meetings a year ago, taking a 4-3 win in Detroit and a 3-2 victory in the rematch in Nashville. They’ve also won 3 of the last 4 meetings and two straight in Music City. The Predators have also had a tendency to be maddeningly erratic at times which makes any wager on or against them an act of faith. Nashville has an edge of having a game under their belt while this will be the Wings’ first action of the season. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nashville has a very tough run of games coming up over the next week–they’ll host San Jose on Tuesday, Washington on Thursday and then head out West for games at Los Angeles, Vegas and Arizona before returning home to take on Florida on Saturday, October 19. Nashville is by far the superior team but just one game into the season no interest in laying a big price. Then again, no real interest on the current incarnation of the Wings either. One thing you should see in the early going from Nashville is a renewed emphasis on offense. For that reason, this game looks like another spot for an ‘Over’. Detroit had one of the most porous offenses in the league a year ago allowing 3.32 goals per game for the #27 scoring defense in the NHL. Preds will want to open things up and exploit this weakness so expect another goal scoring barrage here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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