^{The Predators are in town}

The unfortunately named Nashville Predators are in town, marking the second meeting between the clubs. This meeting is the second of four, with 2 home games split between the clubs. Back when the season was new, Utah beat Nashville 3-2 in overtime on a Dylan Guenther winning goal.

Two games in was hardly a good indicator of where the teams were headed. My hot-take pre-season prediction had the Predators gunning for a playoff spot. After a 68 point campaign in 2024, I looked like a madman to most of my friends. Well, nearly 50% of the season’s gone by and Nashville sits 3 points out of WC2, behind the San Jose Sharks and Utah Mammoth. This is a remarkable turnaround because literally just a month ago, Nashville struggled with just a .400 points percentage (8-13-4) putting them dead last in points and points percentage in the league.

Since December 1st, however, Nashville has been red hot. Going 8-4-0 for 16 points gives them a .667 points percentage, good for 7th best point production in the league. 8 wins has them tied for 5th most wins in the month, with fewer games than anyone but Colorado and Buffalo above them. They beat the Colorado Avalanche at home in a shootout, and just before break took out the 3rd best team in the league in Minnesota, winning 3-2 in overtime on the road (though they lost to the lowly Blues right after Christmas). Why the remarkable turnaround?

Simply put, December’s found them completely flipping the script on opponents. Their aggressive forecheck has delivered. Their power play has massively improved. Their stout penalty kill has also improved. Steven Stamkos found the Fountain of Youth. Ryan O’Reilly is crushing both sides of the ice, and a number of their younger players are stepping up into their roles effectively. Oh, and Juuse Saros turned on Vezina trophy-winning Saros mode.

With help from a massively improved Roman Jossi, Saros has been key in cutting goals allowed from nearly 3.7 per game through November 30th to just 2.67 in December. Saros is posting the second most wins in December, backed by a stellar .912 save percentage. He’s also done that facing the highest volume of shots in the league over that time (297 shots against, only 26 goals allowed).

Offensively, the top line of Ryan O’Reilly, Steven Stamkos and Filip Forsberg in December are each averaging over a point per game. O’Reilly’s 14 points puts him in the top 25 productive players in December, and Stamkos is right behind with 13. Both are in the top 40 point per game players this month.

Key points to secure a victory today:
Home Alone Nashville’s been an impressive squad in December… but mostly at Bridgestone Arena. While they’ve won 5 of 6 at home, Nashville is just 3-3 when traveling. 2 of those wins occurred in overtime against Florida and Minnesota as mentioned above. In those 6 away games, they scored 3 goals or fewer in 5 of them, with a 5-2 win against St. Louis the only game with any significant offensive output. Comparatively, they scored 4+ goals at home 4 times in 6 games.

Their 1.5+ goal differential at home falls to a negative one on the road, so it’s going to be important for the Delta Center to feel like a road game for Nashville.

To catch a 1st line The O’Reilly/Stamkos/Forsberg lines are absolutely brutal to play against, but with home matchup, Andre Tourigny will need to play their matchups intelligently. While any power plays against Utah will feature those three, lining up in even strength situations will be important.

Stamkos, even in his later years, is still an incredible offensive threat, and O’Reilly is still one of the games best 2-way centers, they suffer from the same issue – speed. Utah’s much faster of a squad than Nashville, especially the top line. Utah’s top 6 are faster than the most dangerous unit – aside from Forsberg, so using that speed to catch up to any odd-man rushes and their speed to limit space for the top line to operate will be a critical component in their success.

Even Steven While Stamkos hasn’t been the biggest threat on the power play in December, the PP unit for the Predators has been really good. They’ve been just outside the top 10 in terms of efficiency, with a 21% success rate. While this isn’t quite as dangerous as some of the other teams the Mammoth have faced, their power play combined with their extremely effective top-10 penalty kill makes their edge in special teams especially potent.

A back and forth special teams battle doesn’t look to favor the Mammoth. While it’s always preferable to be on the power play than not, make-up calls can bite you hard in this league. Discipline should be the name of the game; recent performances in special teams the past few games for Utah should have taught them that.

Projected Lineups:
No news as of 1AM Mountain Time. Shocking, I know.

TUSKS UP!