The Nashville Predators spent time today working on the power play and preparing for tomorrow's game against William Nylander, John Tavares, Austin Matthews, and the Toronto Maple Leafs.
The Nashville Predators spent time today working on the power play and preparing for tomorrow's game against William Nylander, John Tavares, Austin Matthews, and the Toronto Maple Leafs.
The Nashville Predators practiced this morning at Centennial Sportsplex a day ahead of their challenging game against the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Today Andrew Brunette spent time working with the power play units at the end of practice. The top power pay unit consisted of Tyson Barrie, Roman Josi, Ryan O'Reilly, Filip Forsberg, and Luke Evangelista while Alexandre Carrier, Phil Tomasino, Tommy Novak, Juuso Pärssinen, and Gustav Nyquist practiced as the second unit.
One thing looked very different with the first power play unit. Roman Josi played down closer to the net while Barrie quarterbacked the power play from up top.
"Tyson has run so many good power plays over the course of his career," Brunette said after practice. "And with Roman, he's a little bit of a hybrid. He can do either/or, but we are trying to get some looks early."
"We're putting Jos in a little bit of an uncomfortable position, playing the top most of his career," Brunette continued. "Trying to get him comfortable being lower. I think that's a little bit of danger when you have two D they don't usually go that low or they're not comfortable hanging around with the offensive net."
"He's taken the challenge and he wants to be there and we're trying to make it work."
Brunette did confirm that there would be some lineup changes in tomorrow night's game but did not elaborate. It's worth noting that Cole Smith practiced some of the time Wednesday on the top line with Forsberg and O'Reilly, and Phil Tomasino ran drills with Michael McCarron and Samuel Fagemo. Pärssinen skated with the extra forwards Wednesday but again was practicing with the second power play unit today.
It does not look like Cody Glass will be back in the lineup tomorrow night. Glass is still day-to-day with a lower body injury.
"We're trying to get reevaluated every day," Brunette said. "We'll see where it goes."
Again today, Phil Tomasino was the last man on the ice at practice.
The Predators will hold morning skate tomorrow and then host the Toronto Maple Leafs at 6:00 pm CT at home.