Game Day: Preds vs. Hurricanes Preview
Hurricanes #Hurricanes
The Nashville Predators (16-14-6) will begin a five-game road trip against Eastern Conference opponents with a visit to the Carolina Hurricanes (25-7-6) Thursday at PNC Arena.
The puck drops at 6 p.m. CT, and the game will be broadcast on Bally Sports South, 102.5 The Game and El Jefe Radio. Here’s everything you need to know:
Line ‘Em Up
Below are Nashville’s lines from Tuesday’s game vs. Montreal:
Forsberg – Parssinen – SissonsJankowski – Johansen – DucheneNiederreiter – Glass – GranlundTrenin – Novak – Jeannot
McDonagh – JosiEkholm – CarrierLauzon – McKeown
Saros
The Good Guys
The Other Guys
The Hurricanes are coming off a 5-3 loss to the New York Rangers on Tuesday, which ended Carolina’s historic win streak at 11 games. Martin Necas leads the Hurricanes with 37 points (17g-20a), and his 17 goals are second only to Andrei Svechnikov’s 19.
Goaltender Antti Raanta was named the NHL’s Third Star of the week ending Jan. 1 after he went 3-0-0 with a 1.30 goals-against average, .944 save percentage and two shutouts to backstop the Hurricanes (25-6-6, 56 points) to a perfect week as they extended their winning streak to 11 games and point streak to 17 contests (15-0-2) – both franchise records.
All-Time Meetings
The Predators are 17-19-(1)-4 all-time against the Hurricanes, including a 6-11-(1)-3 record on the road. This is the first of two matchups between Nashville and Carolina in 2022-23 and the first and only at PNC Arena.
Nashville went 0-2-0 against Carolina last season, including a 5-3 defeat away from home on Feb. 18. The Predators are 2-3-0 in their last five games against the Hurricanes and 0-4-1 in their last five on the road.
Notables vs. Carolina
Last Time Out
Nashville moved to 9-6-3 at home in 2022-23 with Tuesday’s win over Montreal. The Predators matched their season high in goals with six for the second time in their last three games. They also scored two power-play goals for the fourth time this season and first time since Dec. 2 at NY Islanders.
Niederreiter recorded his second career three-assist game and first since Nov. 3, 2013. He was one of five Predators players to have multiple points, joined by Mattias Ekholm (1g-1a), Mikael Granlund (2a), Josi (1g-1a) and Novak (1g-1a). Forsberg assisted on Colton Sissons’ goal to push his point streak to four games (5g-3a), and Sissons’ goal gave him four points (2g-2a) in his last three games.
Watch & Listen
Coverage for Thursday’s game begins at 5:30 p.m. CT with the Predators LIVE! pregame show on Bally Sports South, hosted by Lyndsay Rowley. Play-by-play announcer Willy Daunic and analyst Chris Mason will have the call on the television side.
Max Herz and Hal Gill will call the game on 102.5 The Game and the Predators Radio Network. The game will also be broadcast in Spanish on El Jefe which airs on 96.7 FM, 105.3 FM and 810 AM.