The Need to Knows
- Time: 5:00 pm PT / 8:00 pm ET
- Place: Bridgestone Arena, Nashville, TN
- Where to Watch: KHN, KONG, Bally Sports South (TN market), ESPN+ (all other U.S. markets)
- Where to Listen: Kraken Audio Network on KJR 93.3 FM
Know Your Enemy
Pay no heed to Nashville’s 0-2 record. Two games is such a small sample that it’s not meaningful to extrapolate a team’s quality from it. What we know is that the Predators were a playoff team last year, finishing with 99 points and they should be improved from last season.
The Predators have Filip Forsberg. Those are some real, real dirty dangles:
He’s so much fun to watch and he pops off the screen. Nashville’s top line of Forsberg, Ryan O’Reilly, and Gustav Nyquist is fantastic, but Nashville was over-reliant on that line last season. This summer, they brought in some reinforcements in free agency in forwards Steven Stamkos and Jonathan Marchessault; and defenseman Brady Skjei.
The Stamkos-Colton Sissons-Marchessault line provides Nashville with nice depth. Skjei makes their defense corps better, already led by the superb Roman Josi.
Nashville will likely start Juuse Saros, who despite being the shortest goalie in the league at 5’11”, is an excellent goaltender and someone I wouldn’t be shocked if he was a Vezina finalist one of these years.
The goal song (which we hope not to hear too much of)
Nashville’s goal song is one of the best in the league: it uses a local artist, it’s not overplayed or cliche, and the song matches the city’s culture. They play Tim McGraw’s “I Like It/I Love It” but with a re-recorded chorus.
I don’t know what it is with that little gal’s lovin’
became
I don’t know what it is ’bout the Predators scorin’
Then they move into a second song — finishing with Gold on the Ceiling by the Black Keys.
You may or may not like country, but it is absolutely mandatory that a team in Nashville use it for their goal song. There’s no excuse whatsoever to do otherwise and they understood the assignment.
It’s a top-tier goal song in a top-tier hockey atmosphere. Hockey might not seem like it would be popular in a city that usually doesn’t go below freezing, but the fans make Bridgestone Arena one of the loudest and raucous arenas in all of hockey.
Game Preview
Right now the Kraken are in “get things figured out with a new coach” mode, and that’s not likely to change over the next few weeks. 3 games in, things haven’t been solved. Go figure. Coach Bylsma said it would take 20 games or so to get things really humming. The Kraken’s 20th game happens right before American Thanksgiving.
A big part of the issue has been the defensive pairings and defensemen not knowing where their partner is going to go yet. This was exacerbated by Vince Dunn leaving the game late against Minnesota on Saturday, leaving Adam Larsson without his normal defensive partner on Sunday.
If Dunn misses tonight’s game, the defensive pairs will be jumbled again, and that chemistry that already takes time is going to take…more time.
The Kraken cancelled their scheduled practice in Nashville yesterday, so we won’t know if Dunn is practicing or not until Tuesday’s morning skate.
I want to see improvement from game to game. I want to see them trying new things, even if not all of them work. The Kraken are getting buried by shots in the slot or net front. They have to clean that up if they want to get things going this season. I have no reason to think they won’t figure it out, but it’s a process and few things happen overnight.
As long as we see improvement week-over-week? The Kraken should be okay.