Preview: Nashville Predators come to Boston to face off against the Bruins

Just the facts

When: 7:00 PM

Where: TD Garden, Boston, MA

How to follow: NBCSN, FS-TN, and 98.5 The Sports Hub

Rival SBN site: On the Forecheck

Know your enemy

• The Preds are 16-12-6 and have 38 points, four spots out of the wildcard race in the West
• Goals: Nick Bonino, 13
• Assists: Ryan Ellis, 20
• Points: Roman Josi, 31 (11G-20A)
• Goalie: Pekka Rinne is still the guy. At 11-5-3, he’s their best option, though the 2.99 GAA / .894 Sv% are... not ideal.

Game notes

• Thursday’s shootout loss to the Islanders still gets the B’s somewhere on paper, but there has yet to be a great recovery from that losing streak. They’ve still lost seven of their last eight games.
• Boston’s skill showed against the Islanders but were not as big of a factor on the scoreboard. Decent possession stats aren’t putting pucks in the net.
• If you look at Nashville’s trend over the last nine games, they’ve been alternating by twos in terms of wins and losses. If the trend continues (ha, not reliable), then Boston should win tonight’s game.
• Over this stretch, notice that they’ve both won and lost to some ‘developing’ teams: New York’s Rangers, Buffalo, Ottawa, New Jersey... their play is just hard to predict. What’s even weirder: in their most recent two wins against NYR and NYI, they’ve been out-possessed by their opponent (by Corsi); despite trailing 3-1 around the midpoint of the game, they embarrassed the Islanders, 8-3.
• Let’s not expect any good news on injuries, because if we do, they come back sooner than we expect... right?! Zach Senyshyn was sent to Providence upon being healthy enough to play, and Kevan Miller continues to experience setback after setback. Here’s hoping some holiday R&R does him some good.