It was a bad night for the Nashville Predators to lose a tight game with all of their closest competition for a playoff spot winning (except for Detroit).  Playing their last game at home before the Olympic break, the Predators had the lead three times before falling behind 4-3 in the third period to lose to the San Jose Sharks.

Dany Heatley scored twice for the Sharks. But it was Russian goalie Evgeni Nabokov that stole the win for San Jose. Nabokov, and a cheap boarding call on Dan Hamhuis with 10 minutes to play in the third that allowed for the Sharks to get the lead in the first place.  The Predators and the Sharks played head to head all night. After two, the score was tied at 3 goals a piece, each team with 22 shots. The game was to be won or lost on special teams.

Nashville was not without its chances. The top line of Jason Arnott, Steve Sullivan and Patric Hornqvist had 13 shots on goal, 9 coming from Arnott. They maintained a lot of pressure in the Sharks end, but were robbed chance after chance by Nabokov.

Goal scorers for the Predators were Joel Ward and J.P. Dumont adding two more. Dumont was recently called out by coach Trotz and played only 8 minutes on Thursday night. It was the least amount of ice time Dumont has ever played when healthy. Trotz said he expected more from Dumont and more is exactly what he got tonight. Dumont saw his ice time double, playing a little over 16 minutes Saturday night.

The Predators are now 19-1-0 when Joel Ward registers a point. Saturday’s game was the first time Ward got a point in a game that Nashville would go on to lose.

Up next for the Predators is an Eastern Conference swing to play the Islanders, Rangers, Devils and Penguins. This is a great opportunity to get some points back that we’ve lost as of late. The Islanders and Rangers are struggling teams. In fact, the Penguins and Devils haven’t exactly been playing lights out hockey either! Hopefully the Predators will take their effort that they played with Thursday and Saturday up north.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 7th, 2010 at 12:34 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.