Oilers v. Predators: 1 Samuel 19:1-7

There were many fans who spoke with Daryl about ridding the team of Kevin, but Daryl loved Kevin very much. So Daryl went to Kevin and said, "Look at this mess! The fans are clamoring to have you hanged! But don't worry; there is no need for you to step down. I'll reason with them, and if that doesn't work, do my best to redirect their anger towards Craig or even towards me."

And so Daryl spoke to the fans saying, "How can you be so angry with a man who has devoted most of his adult life to this team and to this city? Don't you remember the days he led this team to five Stanley Cups as a player and to the Stanley Cup Finals as a manager? Don't you remember how your rejoiced? Why, then, are you calling for the man's head at the first sign of trouble?" And the fans listened to Daryl, and said, "This man is telling us the truth! We can't condemn a man who has given us so much!" And when the team started winning consistently, Lowe came before the people again, and they loved him as they had before.

Nashville Predators @ Edmonton Oilers

Rexall Place, 6:00 p.m. MST
Television: Sportsnet

The Race to the Bottom (It's Happening Again):

Visiting Team Scouting Report: The Predators aren't a good team this year, but that's been true for a good long while. In many of the years they've made the playoffs, the Predators have been a bad team with a great goaltender. The absence of Pekka Rinne for all but nine games this season has really exposed the Predators as a team that struggles to keep the puck at the right end of the ice. They're not as bad as the Oilers (of course!), but this is a team that needs some major changes to their forwards if they hope to compete with the best teams in the Western Conference.

Expected Lineups:

Edmonton Oilers (15-32-6):

Hall - Nugent-Hopkins - Eberle
Smyth - Gagner - Perron
Hendricks - Gordon - Jones
Joensuu - Arcobello - Yakupov

Ference - J Schultz
Marincin - Petry
Belov - Potter

Scrivens

Nashville Predators (23-22-8):

Spaling - Legwand - Smith
Hornqvist - Fisher - Wilson
Nystrom - Cullen - Bourque
Clune - Gaustad - Stalberg

Weber - Josi
Jones - Del Zotto
Ellis - Bartley

Dubnyk

By The Numbers:

• Jesse Joensuu has played 282 minutes for the Oilers so far this season, and has just two points (both goals). There are exactly seven forwards in the NHL who have played more minutes than Joensuu who have no more than two points: James Wright, John McCarthy, Zac Rinaldo, Chuck Kobasew, Ryan White, and Aaron Volpatti. How many of these players are in the league a year now?
  
• Seth Jones is averaging 20:56 per game so far in his rookie season, good enough for third among all rookies, trailing only Jacob Trouba and Danny DeKeyser. He's not getting a lot of rookie of the year talk, but if his PDO number was closer to normal (it's 95.5 right now), I think he'd be getting a lot more consideration.
• Ryan Smyth has had a great career, but I don't usually consider him as being among the best in the game, so I was really surprised to see that Smyth is currently tied for 33rd on the all-time list (with Mike Modano) for power play goals with 157. That's three back of Mats Sundin and just four behind Bryan Trottier. Weird.