Thursday, April 8, 2010

Thursday Thoughts and Frozen Four Starts Tonight

One of the strengths of the Predator's team this year has been their "short memory" after bad losses and big wins. Regardless of how a game was played, they have had the ability to put it in their rear view mirror and move to the next game.

Hopefully, they will learn from last night's marginal effort and get ready for Saturday's game and the upcoming playoffs. This week is the first time this season, other than the Olympic break, that the Preds have had more than a day or two between games. They did not respond well to rest.

The Predators simply did not look like they were prepared for a full sixty minute effort against on of the NHL's top teams. Their third period melt down has become far too common in the last few weeks. On top of that, Patric Hornqvist was injured and did not play the second half of the game.

With the loss, the Preds appear headed for sixth or seventh place and a probable match with the Sharks or Canucks which will provide far more difficult travel than a series in Phoenix would have if the Preds had held on to fifth.

In the true Predator spirit, it's time to have a short memory and move forward. All the Preds can do, at this point, is win on Saturday and hope for a little help from others in slowing down Los Angeles and Detroit.

Predators - Coyotes Wrap-Up


Here is our story from last night.

John Glennon has the game story, notes column and postgame ponderings. He had no additional word on Patric Hornqvist's injury.

David Boclair reports from the City Paper.

In the blogs there are posts from Forechecker, Section 303, View from 111, and See Puck City.

The other side of the story comes from the Arizona Republic, Five for Howling, the Phoenix Examiner and The Coyotes Aggregator.

Frozen Four Begins Tonight...

Wisconsin will open against RIT at 4 p.m. CDT and then Boston College will play Miami (OH) at 7:30 p.m. Both games will be shown on ESPN 2. The winners will meet Saturday at 6 p.m. CDT on ESPN.

Here's everything you need to know from the USCHO Site and Inside College Hockey.

Russ Cohen takes a look at the storylines in this year's Frozen Four.

Sean Leahy interviews Blake Geoffrion about the tournament, his potential of winning the Hobey Baker Award and a wide range of topics.

Bryan Mullen at the Tennessean has another store on Geoffrion.

The Hobey Baker Award will be announced tomorrow (Friday) at 6 p.m. CDT on ESPNU.

In Pred Nation...

Mark Willoughby say down with J.D. Elliott, the new Chairman of the Nashville Sports Authority, for an extended interview. This sis a really good piece that should be encouraging to Preds fans.

Jim Diamond looks at Gabriel Bourque leading his team in the playoffs. Jim also tweeted last night that the Predators Masterton Trophy nominee will be announced at 8 a.m. today.

Before last night's game John Glennon looked at the playoff atmosphere in Coyoteland.

Dirk does the math on Patric Hornqvist to see if he could be a 50 goal scorer.

Section 303 lists sixteen playoff teams in order of their chances to win the cup.

Admirals Short Shifts look at Milwaukee's playoff possibilities.

If the Preds play the Coyotes in the first round, there may not be a single game broad cast by a national network in the US or Canada. Here is a projection from Puck The Media.

The Odd Man Rush has part three in his series of possible Pred opponents with the Chicago Blackhawks.

Bridgestone is already reaping benefits from their naming rights deal with the Preds. The "Bridge" has been named the ACM Venue of the Year.

Around the NHL...

Keith Tkachuk announced his retirement last night which will mean that his last game may be against the Preds on Saturday night if he chooses to dress for the game.

J T Bourne has a good post about a pet peeve of mine. He explains why players don't shoot when the whole arena is screaming shoot.

There was a change in the top spot in the final list of prospect rankings released by central scouting. With the lotter being held next Tuesday, it's time for the speculation to warm up.

Steve Lapore has a revised schedule from NBC on playoff dates with an extra game added. He also has a look at local TV ratings for NHL teams that does not include the Predators.

Interesting Tweets from Dave Strader... @TheVoiceDS: Only teams that have made playoffs each year since the lockout including this season? SJ, Det & NJ. NYR can make the list if they get in. With Phx & LA making playoffs, the only 2 franchises not to make the playoffs since the lockout? Tor & Fla. Looking at final standings in West from last season, the top 4 seeds in the West made playoffs this season, the bottom 4 seeds all missed.

Ryan at the RLD follows his SCF contender article with one on the top five pretenders.

There will be an announcement of the 2011 All-Star game in Raleigh later today at 11:30 CDT. Hat tip to Steve Lapore for pointing me to this piece.

The 100th NHL Tweetup will be on the one year anniversary of the ones that got it started on opening day off the Stanley Cup Playoffs last year. I almost got to go but will now be in New York a week later.

Rob Higgins has his weekly fantasy update at the Toronto Sun. He gives a couple of ideas for next season if you are in a keeper league.

Jonathan Bernier was on NHL Home Ice yesterday and discusses his 2-0 shut out of the Preds from last week among other things. I wasn't aware that his brother scored the first goal on him in juniors. They also had CCHA Commish Tom Anastos discussing the start of today's Frozen Four.

Speak of the Devs has five things to watch for in this year's playoffs at View From My Seats.

THN has the Top Ten man games lost to injury. Number one is obvious but I am surprised by a couple of others.

A really nasty slam at "bloggers" comes from Eric Smith (not our friend in Columbus) "the radio analysit of the Toronto Raptors" who has some fairly amazing things to say about the online writing community. It's post like this that give the mainstream media a bad name. Credibility is earned by a writer's performance over time. Those that are trustworthy will gain readership regardless of the source. To his credit, Eric did reply to me.

Odds and Ends...

I've always said that if the power grid went down and didn't come back up within a few days, half of all Americans would die. This report goes further than that. Here is an older article with a better description of what an EMP attack would do. Sounds like something from the Matrix Trilogy.

On another front, Dahlia Kurtz discusses Dove's "beauty" enhancing products.

Who has the best burgers in Nashville? All 31 that are discussed don't hold a candle to In-N-Out's animal style. The 1685 miles to the closest In-N-Out location might make a local burger a bit easier. Blake's Lotaburger is a bit closer at 1030 miles and is still probably better than anything local.

Speaking of fatty fast foods, KFC has a fine new offering starting next week, the double down. Who needs bread?

Why is Russia charging US astronauts $56 million for a ride to the space shuttle when they only charge $35 million for "space tourists"?

More Later...

Buddy Oakes for PredsOnTheGlass

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