The Nashville Predators and the Vancouver Canucks meet in NHL action from Rogers Arena on Thursday night.
The Nashville Predators will be looking to bounce back from a 5-2 loss at the hands of the Edmonton Oilers in their last game. Roman Josi leads the Preds with 11 points including a team-high 8 assists and a +3 plus/minus rating while Matt Duchene has 9 points with 5 assists and shares the team lead in goal scoring with Ryan Johansen, Filip Forsberg and Tanner Jeannot with 4 goals apiece this season. Josi also has a team-high 6 power play points this season. Juuse Saros has posted a 4-4 record with a 2.39 GAA and a .922 save percentage while Connor Ingram is 1-1 with a 3.02 GAA and a .906 save percentage this season.
The Vancouver Canucks will try to build off of a 3-2 win over the Rangers in overtime last time out. J.T. Miller leads the Canucks with 11 points including a team-high 8 assists while Conor Garland has 10 points with 3 goals and 7 assists as well as a team-best +6 plus/minus rating this season. Quinn Hughes has 7 points with 5 assists while Bo Horvat has a team-high 4 goals on the year. Alex Chiasson has also chipped in a pair of power play goals for the Canucks this season. Thatcher Demko has posted a 4-3-1 record in goal for Vancouver, with a 2.48 GAA and a .923 save percentage while Jaroslav Halak is 0-2 with a 2.07 GAA and a .917 save percentage this season.
Nashville is 2-6 in their last 8 road games and 4-1 in their last 5 games overall. Vancouver is 2-6 in their last 8 home games and 1-8 in their last 9 games following a win while the under is 7-0-1 in their last 8 games against the Western Conference.
I get the case that could be made for either side here, but I’m realistically looking at the over. I don’t trust the goaltending on either side, and if you can’t keep pucks out of the net, you’re going to have a lot of trouble hitting unders. The Preds and Canucks both have solid lineups from top to bottom and I think six goals in this one should be no sweat. Give me the over here.