OTF Classic

So it all comes down to this; a three-game string Tuesday, Thursday and Friday to determine whether the Predators will make the playoffs. Despite the frustration of Sunday afternoon's loss in Detroit, Nashville does have to feel confident in both their goaltender and the overall team effort, and be grateful to earn at least the OTL point. Dan Ellis has come up huge during this stretch run, setting this season's NHL-best shutout streak of 233:39 up through the OT goal against the Red Wings, with the team earning 7 out of a possible 8 points in the last four games. Vancouver remains one point ahead in the standings, and finishes out the season at home. To the Canucks' disadvantage, however, they are playing teams still fighting for position, whereas the Predators wrap up against the Blues and Blackhawks, who are simply playing out the string. While the main focus is on passing Vancouver, it shouldn't be forgotten that a stumble by Calgary could leave them out of the p...

Can the Nashville Predators keep up their dominance over the Blue Jackets tonight in Columbus? They'll have to in order to keep their playoff dreams alive. Nashville is 14-0-1 in their last 15 against Columbus, but the Blue Jackets will be bristling for revenge after getting beaten on the scoreboard and in a few scraps during Tuesday's 3-0 Preds win in Nashville. As for the teams they're chasing, Vancouver has lost Brendan Morrison for the rest of the season, dealing a blow to their already anemic offense. Colorado may have pretty much wrapped up their playoff berth with victories over the Flames and Canucks earlier this week; they'd have to really flop hard for both Vancouver and Nashville to pass them. In other notes, the Preds are very concerned about Dan Ellis' ability to keep his weight up considering the steady work he's been seeing lately. Since Cracker Barrel is one of the Predators' sponsors, maybe they could rig something like this o...

If, as Barry Melrose Rocks posited the other day, the Nashvile Predators stretch drive for the playoffs most resembles the film Major League , then hopefully someone in that locker room has set up the shrine to Jobu (I'm guessing Radulov, as his scoring touch seems to have departed of late): The funny thing is, the Major League -style drama is really what was avoided when Gary Bettman stepped in to put the kabosh on Jim Balsillie's purchase of the team last summer. Balsillie was all set to purchase the team and submarine their performance in order to trigger the paid attendance clause in their lease and pack the team off to Hamilton, where he'd already made his arena deal and started taking deposits for Predators season tickets . The bottom line here is that although the last few days have gone well in the playoff hunt (victories over Columbus and Chicago, while Vancouver stumbled against Calgary and Colorado), much still needs to fall into place to assure a post-season s...

Sorry for the lack of content lately, but I'm happy to announce that the new computer has arrived and I've brought over as much data as I could from the old one that I torched inadvertently. At 42 feet tall, the new Forechecker Data Center towers over the neighborhood... I configured it online via the good folks at CyberPowerPC.com (using the coupon code MYSPACE I got $30 off the order), and went with an Intel 2.66Ghz dual-core setup, 2GB RAM and an NVidia 8600GT video card, good enough for my purposes. I was able to harvest the hard drives and DVD drive off my old box, but some things were lost, so I've got a lot of data to rebuild. On the downside, it looks like the Fab Forecheckers are going down in the Fantasy Hockey playoffs to Mirtle's Merry Men. So much for that regular season dominance ...

So many things to say about last night's 6-3 loss to Detroit, it's best perhaps to break it into Good News/Bad News: Good News : The Predators fought back from a 3-1 deficit to tie the game in the 3rd period. Bad News : Nashville gave up a 1-0 lead due to soft goals allowed by Dan Ellis, which caused Barry Trotz to pull him five minutes into the 2nd. Chris Mason gave up his share of softies to, so rest assured, there's no #1 goalie controversy in Nashville because right now, the Predators don't have a #1 goalie. Good News : The fans sold out another game, and Saturday's game against Chicago is sold out as well. Bad News : The Preds have packed the house lately, but flopped horribly. This marks six losses in a row at the Sommet Center, hardly the formula for making that push to the postseason. Good News : Colorado lost their 3rd game in a row, leaving them just 4 points ahead of Nashville for the final Western Conference playoff spot. Bad News : With only 7 ...

Detroit comes to Nashville night for another key game in the Predators drive for a playoff spot; this isn't a game that one would bank on the Predators winning, but after devastating losses to L.A. and Washington over the last week, there's precious little room for error left. Barry Trotz has challenged his top line of Radulov/Arnott/Dumont to carry the team on their collective backs again, but to be honest, that's difficult when offensive support is few and far between. The lackluster play of late only underscores David Legwand's importance to the team. The key to victory is to come out and simply outwork the Red Wings; no mean feat, to be sure, but desperate teams need to play like their season is on the line (because, duh, IT IS ) against more talented opponents. I don't have time to post a full-scale preview, so I'd recommend checking On the Wings and Pred Joe for their insight. I'll be at the game tonight, however, and should have some thoughts tom...

One bad period is the touch of death for a hockey team; during poor stretches in February and early March, the Nashville Predators seemed to have continuing problems in the 2nd period. Tonight against Washington, a fellow come-from-behind battler for playoff position, the Preds seemed to sleepwalk through the first, leaving them with a 3-0 deficit that proved too difficult to overcome en route to a 4-2 loss at home. Will they follow this up by beating the NHL-leading Red Wings, as they did last week after losing to the L.A. Kings? I wouldn't count on it; that's a hardly a formula for a successful stretch drive. The Capitals took the 1-0 lead off a nice shot by Alexander Semin just inside the faceoff dot to Ellis' right, but Greg Zanon had gone down (once again) to the ice to block a potential shot far too early, which gave Semin all the room he needed to skate into prime scoring position before firing away. It's the same gaffe that Zanon's been committing for se...