Ryan McDonagh welcomes his former team, the Tampa Bay Lightning, to Bridgestone Arena tonight in a game that may indicate whether the team is settling into a new and improved normal.
The Nashville Predators earned their first three game win streak of the season with a 5-4 victory over the New York Islanders Thursday night. Tonight they hope to extend that streak as the Preds face off against the 10-6-1 Tampa Bay Lightning.
The Lightning arrive at Bridgestone on a three game win steak of their own and have not lost more than two games back to back this season. On Thursday the Lightning defeated the Calgary Flames 4-1, a game in which former Predators defenseman Philipp Myers scored his first goal of the season. Myers was part of the trade that brought Ryan McDonagh to Nashville. McDonagh will face his former team for the first time tonight since being abruptly traded to the Preds in the offseason to create cap space for Tampa Bay.
The Lightning bring top offensive weapons to Bridgestone tonight, with the team ranking 11th in the league in Goals For/Game with 3.41. Nikita Kucherov leads the Lightning in points with 9 goals and 16 assists. Steven Stamkos has also recorded 9 goals while Brayden Point and Nick Paul have each chipped in 6 scores a piece in the team's 17 games.
Andrei Vasilevskiy is off to yet another solid start in net for Tampa Bay. The former Vezina winner has a .906 save percentage in his twelve starts so far this season and is coming off a win over Calgary in which he stopped 39 of the 40 shots he faced. Backup Brian Elliot has a .891 save percentage in his five starts this season.
Tampa Bay's special teams have been above average this season with a power play that currently ranks ninth in the league and a penalty kill just slightly behind Nashville statistically. Nashville's penalty kill has been good this season, and an abysmal start the the power play may be turning around for the Preds as they have scored a power play goal in three of their last four games.
Nashville will need another strong defensive performance tonight against the Lightning's fast offense. Juuse Saros appears to have returned to his Vezina finalist form in his last three games after a rocky start to his season, and John Hynes confirmed Saros will get the start in net again tonight.
John Hynes' recent reshuffling of the forward lines appears to be paying off offensively for the Preds so far. Nino Niederreiter leads the team with 8 goals this season, including a goal in each of the Preds' last two games where he and Ryan Johansen have been joined by Matt Duchene. Young Juuso Pärssinen has impressed in his first three NHL games on a line with points leader Filip Forsberg and Mikael Granlund. There will be a few game time decisions with regards to the line up, likely involving Yakov Trenin who has been day to day with a lower body injury.
The Predators take on the Lightning tonight at Bridgestone Arena. Puck drop is scheduled for 7:00 pm CT. The game will be broadcast on Bally Sports South, streamed on ESPN+, and 102.5 The Game will have the radio call.