The Nashville Predators and the Montreal Canadiens meet in NHL action from the Bell Centre on Saturday night.
The Nashville Predators will be out to bounce back from their 3-0 loss to Toronto after their matchup with the Senators was postponed. Matt Duchene leads the Preds with 16 points including a team-high 9 goals while Mikael Granlund and Roman Josi each have 16 points as well, with Granlund logging a team-high 13 assists while Josi has 6 goals, 10 assists and a team-best +10 plus/minus rating this season. Juuse Saros has seen the majority of Nashville’s work in goal, going 7-4-1 with a 2.17 GAA and a .928 save percentage this season.
The Montreal Canadiens will look to bounce back from a disappointing 6-0 loss to Pittsburgh in their last game. Nick Suzuki leads the Habs with 14 points including team-highs of 4 goals and 10 assists while Tyler Toffoli has 9 points with 3 goals and 6 assists and Brendan Gallagher has 8 points with 3 goals and 5 apples. Josh Anderson, Mike Hoffman and Ben Chiarot each have 4 goals as well while Mathieu Perreault has a team-best +3 plus/minus rating as does Sami Niku. Jake Allen’s made the majority of Montreal’s starts in goal, going 4-8-1 with a 2.79 GAA and a .905 save percentage this season.
Nashville is 8-3 in their last 11 games overall and 39-17 in their last 56 games against a team with a losing record while the under is 10-1 in their last 11 Saturday games. Montreal is 1-4 in their last 5 home games and 7-20 in their last 27 games overall while the under is 10-1 in their last 11 Saturday games.
I get the case that could be made for a home team in a coin flip spot in most scenarios, but not here. The Habs have been absolutely awful this season and when you thought maybe going back home would help this team’s fortunes, it backfired as they got their butts kicked by Pittsburgh. I’m not the biggest Nashville fan, but the Predators are playing the better hockey right now although that may not be saying much. Give me Nashville here.