Watch Nashville Predators vs Ottawa Senators Live Online
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Watch Nashville Predators vs Ottawa Senators Live Online
7:30 pm EDT Thu Oct 22, 2009
7:30 pm EDT Thu Oct 22, 2009
With back-to-back wins to start the season, prospects were looking up for the Nashville Predators. Very little has gone right since, though. The Predators try to avoid matching a franchise record with their seventh straight loss Thursday night when they visit an Ottawa Senators team seeking its sixth victory in seven games. After missing the playoffs last season for the first time since 2003, Nashville (2-5-1) got off to a fast start to the 2009-10 season by scoring six goals in winning its first two games. It has been unable to build on those victories, though, totaling six goals during an 0-5-1 drought.
A big reason for the Predators’ struggles has been a nonexistent power play. Nashville went 0 for 3 with the man advantage in Wednesday’s 3-2 loss at Boston and is 1 for 27 in such situations this season. The Predators’ lone power-play goal came in the season opener Oct. 3, and the team’s seven-game stretch without a score with the man advantage matches a franchise record set in the final seven games of the 2002-03 season. Nashville was 0-5-1 with one tie in that stretch. Nashville, in the midst of its longest losing streak since Oct. 10-23, 2007, is also in danger of matching the franchise record of seven consecutive losses set from Nov. 20-Dec. 2, 1999.
Ottawa (5-2-0) beat Montreal 3-1 on Saturday for its fifth victory in six games. Alex Kovalev had a goal and an assist in his first game against the Canadiens since leaving Montreal to sign a two-year, $10 million contract with Ottawa on July 6. Kovalev’s 397th goal of his 17-season NHL career put the Senators up by two with 8:32 remaining and was loudly applauded by the Bell Centre crowd.
