Ducks Face Familiar Playoff Rival

By Michael Walters

The Anaheim Ducks(6-5-1) continue their homestand against the Nashville Predators(5-5-2). The game starts at 7:00 PM PT and will be on Prime Ticket locally and AM 830. The Ducks fell short to making the Stanley Cup last season at the hands of the Predators and will look for some redemption tonight.

Anaheim Outlook:

The Ducks are coming off a 3-1 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs on Wednesday. Anaheim was without with Ryan Getzlaf and he won’t play tonight either. Kalle Kossila played the top line center role Wednesday night and he may have an opportunity to do so again tonight. The Ducks are again going to have to find a way to win without key players. The Ducks placed Reto Berra on waivers today.

Keys To The Game

The Ducks need to work on getting sustained pressure on the forecheck. In their last game, they were able to get plenty of shots on net with even a few hitting the posts. The issue for the Ducks is trying to get second chances on offense. The Ducks also missed Getzlaf on the power play as they went 0-for-4 on Wednesday without him. They need to figure a way to get more traffic in front of the net with the extra man tonight and moving forward.

Anaheim’s Projected Lineup:

Offense
Rickard Rakell – Kalle Kossila – Corey Perry
Andrew Cogliano – Antoine Vermette – Jakob Silfverberg
Nick Ritchie – Derek Grant – Ondrej Kase
Chris Wagner – Dennis Rasmussen – Logan Shaw

Nashville Outlook:

The Predators are sitting at a .500 record so far in this season. They have shown some offensive power in at least four games where they scored four or more goals. However, in their other eight contests, they have only scored more than three goals one time. Filip Forsberg leads the way for Nashville scoring eight goals so far on the season.

Keys To The Game

If Nashville can score three or four goals in this game, then they had a solid chance at earning two points otherwise this could be a close one-goal type game. Nashville has played well on the power play, which is ranked 7th in the league at 23.1% efficiency. They are also 9th in the league short-handed at 83.6%. They will look to draw penalties against the Ducks and try to take advantage with the extra man.

Nashville’s  Projected Lineup (Nashville website):

Offense
Scott Hartnell – Ryan Johansen – Viktor Arvidsson
Filip Forsberg – Colton Sissons – Craig Smith
Kevin Fiala – Calle Jarnkrok – Pontus Aberg
Cody McLeod – Frederick Gaudreau – Austin Watson

Defense
Roman Josi – Mattias Ekholm
Alexei Emelin – P.K. Subban
Matt Irwin – Yannick Weber

In Net
Pekka Rinne 5-2-2, GAA 2.10, SV% .931 (Confirmed)

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November 3rd, 2017

Filed under: Ducks News Tagged: Anaheim Ducks, ducksnpucks, nashville predators