Nashville's net minders have given up too much, and the Blues' goalies are giving up little. Play in front of the net and on the man advantage may decide tonight's central division matchup
The Nashville Predators are in need of a win tonight at home against the St. Louis Blues, and it isn't even about collecting the divisional two points. The Preds are stuck in a five game losing rut, and the mental boost a win against the Blues could give this team may be the breakthrough Nashville desperately needs to turn the page on a disappointing start to the regular season.
The Predators have struggled with too many penalties, an anemic power play, third period lulls, and an inability to finish on high danger chances since their return to North America. A four day break from games combined with high intensity practices and interesting lineup changes may provide the Predators with a chance to snap their losing streak and finally earn the franchise's 900th win.
Lineups
Tonight Cody Glass will center the second line with Mikael Granlund and Nino Niederreiter. Granlund played wing much of his time with the Minnesota Wild, but has predominantly been playing center under Hynes. Ryan Johansen will bump up to play on the top line with Filip Forsberg and Matt Duchene.
The defensive pairings will also have a different look tonight. Hynes has split up Ryan McDonagh and Mattias Ekholm, and will pair Ekholm with Alexandre Carrier and McDonagh will support Jeremy Lauzon on the third pairing. Mark Borowiecki is still out of the lineup after a scary injury in Saturday night's game against the Philadelphia Flyers.
The Blues will also be playing with a modified lineup, but theirs is unfortunately mostly due to injury. On Wednesday the Blues placed Pavel Buchnevich on injured reserve, and Brandon Saad is likely to be out tonight due to an upper body injury.
Goaltending
Goaltending will be a key in tonight's game. Juuse Saros has struggled early to play at his Vezina finalist level from last season. Saros currently has a 3.04 goals against average and a .894 save percentage in his five starts. The advanced metrics don't look great for Saros either, but the Finnish net minder usually takes a handful of weeks to hit his stride in goal. Tonight would be a great night to see the Vezina worthy saves Saros made regularly in the middle of the 2021-2022 season.
Jordan Binnington started last night's game against the Oilers in the first game of this back to back, so the Predators may see Thomas Greiss in net this evening. Greiss has one start so far this season, a 4-0 loss to the Winnipeg Jets. Despite the loss, Griess earned a .929 save percentage after facing an unrelenting 43 shots in that game.
Special Teams
Special teams could also be a deciding factor in the outcome of tonight's game. The Blues have had strong performances on special teams in their first five games of the season, earning power play goals on 3 of their 12 chances. Perhaps more concerning for Nashville, St. Louis has allowed no power play goals when killing all eleven of their penalties.
The Preds' power play has looked good but produced few results. Nashville's decidedly underwhelming 6.9% power play percentage gives St. Louis the special teams advantage unless Nashville can turn this around in tonight's game.
How to Watch
Tonight's matchup between the Predators and the Blues will be streamed on ESPN+ and 102.5 The Game will have the radio call locally. Puck drop is scheduled for 7:00 pm CST.