The Nashville Predators are playing their best hockey when it matters most.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the New Jersey Devils might be out of the playoff race but look to continue their recent surge by keeping the host Predators from extending a season-high winning streak to six games Thursday night.<\/p>\n
Poised to return to the playoffs following a disappointing 2024-25 campaign, the Predators (34-28-9, 77 points) currently own the final wild-card spot in the Western Conference \u2014 three points ahead of Los Angeles. Nashville has totaled 20 goals during a five-game winning streak that\u2019s come during this final stretch of the regular season.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, the Predators rode a five-goal first period to win 6-3 over visiting San Jose.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know the standings,\u201d said Nashville forward Jonathan Marchessault, who had three assists against the Sharks and has 10 in the last nine contests.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe took care of business (Tuesday), and we\u2019ve got to focus on the next game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nashville has also outscored its opponents 19-8 during a four-game home winning stretch.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery game from here on out, it\u2019s going to be a playoff-type game for us, and the points are so important,\u201d said Nashville defenseman Brady Skjei, who recorded a goal and three assists in the last four games.<\/p>\n
Predators star Filip Forsberg recorded a goal with two assists on Tuesday. He has 12 points (five goals, seven assists) during the five-game winning streak. Forsberg scored in Nashville\u2019s 3-2 overtime loss at New Jersey on Jan. 29.<\/p>\n
The Devils (36-32-2, 74 points) sit near the bottom of the Eastern Conference standings and are 11 points out of the final wild-card spot. However, New Jersey is 8-3-0 since Feb. 28 and has totaled 23 goals while winning four of the last five.<\/p>\n
Jack Hughes scored twice, while Jesper Bratt and Dougie Hamilton each notched a goal with an assist as the Devils improved to 2-1-0 on a five-game road stretch with Tuesday\u2019s 6-4 victory at Dallas, with four of those scores coming in the opening frame.<\/p>\n
\u201cThings (have) started clicking a little by us, just relaxing and just playing our game,\u201d said Bratt, who has seven goals and 13 assists in the last 18 games.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re just kind of dialing it in as a group,\u201d he said. \u201cThat kind of shows in the flow of our game.\u201d<\/p>\n
With eight goals in the last eight games, Hughes has recorded at least 20 for a fifth straight season. He\u2019s posted two goals and three assists in four career games at Nashville.<\/p>\n
New Jersey\u2019s Jake Allen (2.68 goals-against average, .906 save percentage) has won two of three starts since losing four in a row. Teammate Jacob Markstrom (3.10 GAA, .884 save percentage) has won six of his last eight starts despite allowing at least three goals in each of the last six.<\/p>\n
Nashville veteran Juuse Saros has a 2.51 GAA and .924 save percentage amid his 4-0-1 stretch. Backup Justus Annunen, meanwhile, has yielded just nine goals (1.82 GAA) with a .938 save percentage in winning three of his last five starts.<\/p>\n
Fellow Predators star Steven Stamkos has recorded four of his team-leading 35 goals in the last three games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Nashville Predators are playing their best hockey when it matters most. Meanwhile, the New Jersey Devils might…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":523303,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5119],"tags":[5,2409,231,5281,4,2410],"class_list":{"0":"post-523302","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nashville-predators","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-nashville","10":"tag-nashville-predators","11":"tag-nashvillepredators","12":"tag-nhl","13":"tag-predators"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116294010060801498","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=523302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523302\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/523303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=523302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=523302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=523302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}