The Nashville Predators continue their extended road trip by visiting a familiar foe in the Edmonton Oilers and hope to reverse the recent domination by their foes from up north.
The Edmonton Oilers
The Oilers (8-7-1) are off to another ‘slow’ start, but despite that, the Oilers are already 2-0-0 against Nashville this season, beating the Predators by scores of 4-2 on October 17th and 5-1 on Halloween. Connor McDavid, who missed games earlier this season, is back and is on a tear, posting seven points (2 goals, 5 assists) in his last two outings against the Islanders and Canucks. In fact, his four point effort against New York put him at 999 career points and McDavid is looking for a historic 1,000th point tonight against Nashville.
However, while McDavid is arguably the most dominant player in the NHL, he is not the greatest threat to the Predators. That title belongs to the one and only Leon Draisaitl. Draisaitl has played 28 games against Nashville in the last decade, and has 27 goals and 46 points in those contests. After picking up just a single assist in the first contest, Draisaitl picked up two goals and an assist in the second game. And Draisaitl will put Nashville’s highly-ranked penalty kill to the test, as 15 of his 27 goals have come on the power play (as well as one short-handed goal). Even more impressive, Draisaitl’s 27 goals have come on just 79 shots, a career shooting percentage of 34.2% against the Predators.
Goaltender Calvin Pickard (3-2-0) looks to get the start against the Predators, posting a save percentage of 88.6%. Nashville looks to take advantage of Edmonton’s woeful special teams, where they are 22nd on the power play and dead last on the penalty kill.
The Nashville Predators
After the Predators started the season 0-5-0, Nashville had a small bounce back, picking up back-to-back wins over Chicago and Columbus an a victory over Colorado in their first matchup, but have only won once since, going 1-3-1 in their last five, with their lone victory coming over Utah.
Nashville is led by the usual suspects, as Filip Forsberg (8 goals, 5 assists), Roman Josi (1 goal, 10 assists) and Ryan O’Reilly (3 goals, 7 assists) lead the team in scoring, as the highly-touted free agent additions have faltered since joining Nashville. Jonathan Marchessault (3 goals, 6 assists) and Steven Stamkos (4 goals, 4 assists) have started slow for two players who were 40-goal scorers just last season.
Since losing Dante Fabbro to waivers to Columbus, Nashville has called up Adam Wilsby from Milwaukee, who posted one goal and two assists in eleven games for the Admirals prior to his call-up this week. His arrival hopes to bolster a struggling defense corps, as the Predators are 24th in the NHL in goals allowed per game (3.31).
Juuse Saros (4-7-2) appears to get the start tonight, however his 91.1% save percentage shows a better performance this season than his record suggests.
How to Watch
Tonight’s game starts at 8 pm Central Time on the FanDuel Sports Network as well as 102.5 The Game.