As y'all are munching on your free Frostys thanks to The Real Deal, here's a little trivia question for you:
The Nashville Predators have scored 4 or more goals against every other team in the NHL - except for one. The question: what team is it?
As you ponder that (Hint: there's a couple of reasons for it, and it's also a bit ironic), here's some Shootout stathead stuff:
- Don't think the shootout is essentially a coin flip? Last night was the 47th win by the Predators in the shootout since its inception as an NHL regular season tiebreaker in 2005. They have played in exactly 94 shootouts since that time. Yep, that's right: Preds are 47-47 (.500) in the shootout.
- This was the 12th time Nashville has taken consecutive games to the shootout. In those 12 "pairs" of games, this is the 7th time they've swept the two games.
- Feb. 25/28, 2007 - at CLB (4-3), at SAN (4-3)
- Feb. 12/14, 2009 - STL (4-3), BOS (3-2)
- Nov. 19/21, 2009 - NJD (3-2), CLB (4-3)
- Nov. 11/13, 2010 - at STL (3-2), CHI (4-3)
- Dec. 28/30, 2011 - MIN (2-1), at STL (2-1)
- Jan. 31/Feb 2, 2013 - at LOS (2-1), at SAN (2-1)
- It's also only the 3rd time Nashville has won back-to-back shootouts at home. Nashville has dropped both games of back-to-backs three times.
- Mar. 4/6, 2007 - at ANA (2-3), at DET (3-4)
- Jan. 12/13, 2008 - at CLB (1-2), CHI (2-3)
- Mar. 19/24, 2009 - at SAN (2-3), ANA (1-2)
- The other two games were a win-then-loss and a loss-then win - the first, a loss on Nov. 7, 2007 at Detroit (3-2) coupled with a win (4-3) at home over Columbus.
- The win-loss combo was March 25 and 27 of 2010, with a 4-3 win over Phoenix, followed by a 1-0 shootout loss at the Joe to Detroit.
- That shootout loss to the Wings was the longest shootout in franchise history. The two teams took the competition to 11 rounds, with the Wings scoring twice to the Preds' once. Niklas Kronwall scored in the top of the 11th while Francois Boullion was stopped by Jimmy Howard for the Wings win.
- Nashville has never played in back-to-back-to-back shootouts. In 2007, however, they did play in five shootouts over seven games, from February 22 to March 6. They went 2-3 in the shootout, and coupled it with an OT win and a regulation win for an interesting 4-0-3 record.
- At the beginning of the lockout-shortened 2013 season, the Preds had five shootouts in their first eight games, going 2-3 in those shootouts and 1-2 in regulation for a 3-2-3 start.
- Milestone alerts: Pekka Rinne is now at a combined 190 wins in net as a Predator, between the regular season and the playoffs.
- Craig Smith's next goal puts him at 50 with the Preds; Nystrom's next one gives him 20 as a Pred.
Oh, the trivia answer?
The Preds have not scored four goals at the Bridge against New Jersey since their inception in 1998. Having played only 19 games against them as a franchise - and having the fifth lowest GPG against them among their 29 NHL opponents, this should come as no surprise.
The ironic thing, of course, is that the Devils were rumored at one point in the early-to-mid 1990's to be moving to Nashville. As the Bridge was still under construction at the time, the move didn't happen.
Not even remotely close to me.
