Nashville Predators destroy the Islanders, but can't quite nip the Rangers in the bud.

• As expected, Ryan Suter did not play against the mighty Rangers tonight. The upper-body injury he sustained during the Flyers game, at some point, is snagging him more than expected. Jerred Smithson is still hanging in on the IR. Chris Mueller was also scratched for the night.
• The hottest topic of the night, even more so than Suter’s injury status, was Anders Lindback taking the lead as goalie against the Rangers. Personally, as much as we like Lindy and think he’s a great goalie, we would have gone with Pekka simply because we want to show the team that’s 1st in the Atlantic (and the NHL) the best we have, right? Again, we love Lindback and know he’s good on his own terms, but when you play the best team in the NHL and on national television, wouldn’t you think Lindy could take on the Blue Jackets on Thursday? We could take this in several different directions with this topic (on how Columbus is in our conference/division and their game is more important than an Eastern Conference opponent), but we’ll hold off on that one.
• The Rangers wasted no time landing a goal and scored one in each period. This was Henrik Lundqvist’s first shutout against the Predators.
• Although the Predators were shutout, Anders Lindback did an exceptional job against the Rangers, stopping 26 of 28 shots on goal. The Rangers out-shot the Predators by one shot (27 to 28).
• The Predators also gave the Rangers more chances to advance on the power play, but was able to keep them from capitalizing on the opportunities. Here are they three Preds who took the penalties:

1. Colin Wilson – 2:00 2nd Period – Tripping
2. Martin Erat – 18:24 2nd Period – Interference on Goalkeeper
3. Martin Erat – 19:09 3rd Period – Hooking on the Breakaway (automatic third goal)

The Predators will finish up their on-the-road run Thursday as they stop in Columbus to take on the Blue Jackets. So the Predators weren’t able to take New York by storm, but at least they were able to take down one of those Yankee teams… (Yep, went there).

Until then,
GO PREDS.