Preds look to oust Ducks in playoffs again

Edmonton didn’t only make the post-season for the first time since 2006 – jumping an fantastic 33 points in the standings from a year earlier – but almost cracked the Western Conference final before falling just short in a seven-game second-round series with the Anaheim Ducks. Forwards Miikka Salomaki and Harry Zolnierczyk have played in some games and Predators coach Peter Laviolette could turn to them if he wants to make some lineup changes.

Nashville at Anaheim, 8 p.m. The had virtually no extended injuries to key players.

“The less the puck is in your zone, the harder it is to forecheck”, Subban said.

Getzlaf also said this particular party is already over, however. “I had a great time playing behind them”. He was consistently excellent in his second year with club – he had a save percentage of.918 or higher in every full month but one – despite the heaviest workload in hockey, which saw him start 73 games and face more than 2,100 shots.

But he is set to play for the first time in a top-level senior global event with his twin brother Joel Lundqvist, who is Sweden’s captain and plays forward. And it was in Game 7 that the Ducks flipped the script on their past four (!) playoff runs. He has done so with two stress fractures in his foot and a target on his back. Eight different Preds players have accounted for the game-winning goal in their eight playoff wins so far.

Ottawa’s Jean-Gabriel Pageau emerged in similar fashion to Guentzel. Karlsson is averaging almost 29 minutes of ice time in the playoffs and his 13 points (two goals, 11 assists) lead the team. Coach Guy Boucher has pushed the right buttons even when his distinct 1-3-1 defensive structure and goaltender Craig Anderson have shown some vulnerability.

The Senators are well aware they’re not supposed to be here.

The Senators won two of the three regular-season matchups. “Hopefully McDavid and Draisaitl will be our Crosby and Malkin”. The 21-year-old power forward wasn’t around for any of the Anaheim Ducks’ agonizing Game 7 defeats over the past four seasons.

The Ducks had seen each of their previous five postseason trips come to an end after blowing a 3-2 series lead with a road loss in Game 6 and a home loss in Game 7.

There will also be a focus on Ryan Kesler and his line trying to shut down the top line of the Preds the way they did against Connor McDavid. Nashville has some structural issues in its man advantage, so perhaps Anaheim’s penalty kill unit isn’t quite as much of a weakness as it was against Calgary and Edmonton. It’s not so good if we don’t.

Rinne has a beefy lead among playoff goalies in save percentage (.951) and goals against average (1.37). Rinne has been at his best this postseason playing in front of what one Ducks player called “the best defense in the league”.

Oilers fan Barun Kapoor expects the team to be back in the playoffs next season. Nashville entered the playoffs as the second wild-card team in the West and morphed into probably the hottest team remaining. Up front, the Preds finally have a truly unsafe first line with Ryan Johansen between Filip Forsberg and Viktor Arvidsson. The Predators will need to take a little from their Chicago playbook, a little from their Blues playbook.

Regardless, here we are, about to begin the conference finals, and the Predators are the hottest team in the postseason and the Ducks actually won a Game 7.

It was Josi’s fourth goal of the playoffs and continued a pattern of Predators defensemen supplying scoring.

After a rally from an early deficit and a strong defensive performance to back John Gibson’s 23 saves, the Ducks ended their ignominious streak and moved halfway to the franchise’s second Stanley Cup title.