It’ll be a battle between a team that’s exceeded expectations and another that has underperformed when the Ducks open Honda Center’s doors for the Nashville Predators on Friday.
The Ducks slipped two games below a .500 points percentage with consecutive regulation losses on Tuesday and Wednesday to the East’s most improved team, the formidable Washington Capitals, and the NHL’s newest club, Utah HC. Though the Ducks’ playoff hopes may be flickering, they could finish the season as the Western Conference’s bigger riser-over-year, having accumulated a meager 59 points last season.
Of their 17 remaining games, they’ll face Nashville twice and the San Jose Sharks once, with every other opponent they’ll confront placed higher in the standings than the middling Ducks. Mixed in will be 10 matchups against Western teams either in the playoffs or right on the bubble, including the Ducks’ final eight dates.
“We play a lot of teams that we’re trying to overcome in the standings, but there’s a lot of opportunities to make some strides with our team and also in the playoff race,” forward Alex Killorn, who scored a goal in Utah on Wednesday and won two Stanley Cups in Tampa Bay in 2020 and 2021, told reporters.
The pivot after playing the beefy Capitals at home before contending with a speedy Utah roster on the road made for tough sledding, aided in part by a strong performance from veteran Ville Husso in his Ducks debut after being traded from Detroit. Coach Greg Cronin, who was travel-ready in his golf shirt immediately after the Washington slugfest, said his group got in “wicked late,” as the club’s 3:30 a.m. arrival further complicated matters.
If only late arrivals and maintaining sartorial flare were the Predators’ main issues. Nashville made the playoffs last season, with coach Andrew Brunette, all-world defenseman Roman Josi, sniper Filip Forsberg, 2019 Conn Smythe Trophy winner Ryan O’Reilly and a chemistry-charged cast of mostly lesser-known names. They figured adding marquee players – Steven Stamkos, Jonathan Marchessault and Brady Skjei, specifically – would take them to the next level.
Instead of jockeying around with the contenders, they find themselves fighting tooth and nail with the perpetually purposeless Buffalo Sabres – they’ve missed the playoffs for more years than any other North American pro franchise but the NFL’s New York Jets – for the third-best odds in this year’s draft lottery.
Nashville has sprinkled some cayenne pepper onto more than just its fried chicken of late though, spicing up its game and winning four matches in a row to reach the cusp of a season-long string of victories. They won five straight in January, but lost five straight to start the season, and later meandered through a chain of eight consecutive losses, five of them in regulation.
Florida Panthers forward Sam Bennett’s hit sidelined Josi with an upper-body injury last month, sending him to injured reserve with the dreaded “week-to-week” designation. Forsberg paces the Preds in scoring with 59 points in 64 games.
Nashville at Ducks
When: 7 p.m. Friday
Where: Honda Center
TV: Victory+, KCOP (Ch. 13)