Predators limp into home opener

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There?s nothing quite like a little dose of the injury bug to start a sea*son. The Preds are cer*tainly dea*ling with some pro*blems as they ready for Thursday?s home ope*ner against Colorado.

J.P. Dumont (concussion-like symp*toms), Jor*din Too*too (hip fle*xor) and Colin Wil*son (groin) are out, and Joel Ward (groin) is questionable.

Ward is on the mend and is once again prac*ti*cing with the team, but after mis*sing almost all of trai*ning camp, he may need another cou*ple of days before he?s ready to play a game.

Here?s what the lines loo*ked like in prac*tice on Wed*nes*day, with Ward in the lineup:

* Sullivan-Arnott-Hornqvist
* Santorelli-Legwand-Erat
* Smithson-Goc-Ward
* Jones-Guite-Belak

If Ward isn?t ready to play, look for Nash*vi*lle to recall Andreas Thu*res*son, Tris*ton Grant or Nick Spa*ling. Nor*mally the first for*ward reca*lled would be Cal O?Reilly, but Nash*vi*lle would need a wing much more than a cen*ter in this case.

 

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Predators' top goalie remains a guess

For various reasons, team can't seem to keep No. 1 in net



There are no trap doors in front of the net, no booby traps hidden in the goal crease.


But the absence of tangible hazards doesn't change the fact that starting the season as the No. 1 goalie for the Predators appears to be one of the scariest jobs in the NHL.

Think about the past few seasons:

? Tomas Vokoun began 2006-07 as a starter, but was nudged aside for a while by Chris Mason and eventually traded during the summer of 2007.

? Mason began 2007-08 as the starter, but was supplanted by upstart Dan Ellis by the end of the season.

? Ellis began 2008-09 as the starter, but was overtaken by rookie Pekka Rinne halfway through the season.

? Rinne entered this preseason as the starter, but never even made it to opening night. Ellis grabbed the reins back with a strong preseason, started in Dallas on Saturday and will start tonight against Colorado.

Rinne is scheduled to see his first action Saturday against Buffalo.

The good news for the Predators is that the revolving-door approach doesn't seem to have adversely affected their goalie play.

Six goalies have combined to give Nashville the fourth-best save percentage (.912) in the NHL over the past four seasons, trailing only Minnesota (.918), Florida (.913) and New Jersey (.913).

But still, would a little stability at the starting position be too much to ask?

Those closely involved with Nashville's goaltending situation over the past few years have developed a handful of theories as to why the No. 2 keeps taking over from the No. 1:

Strong development. General Manager David Poile likes the way the organization has been able to develop goalies who will push the starters for their jobs.

"I don't know if it's as much a phenomenon as it is a development of all our goalies,'' Poile said. "For example, Vokoun was No. 1 and Mason was a distant No. 2, but (Mason) just kept developing and evolving, in terms of competition and deserving more games.

"So my answer is that it's an evolution. It's what we've been able to develop. The goaltenders have gotten better. It's a good situation.''


More time to improve. Goaltending coach Mitch Korn's has a similar feeling. He figures that when starters such as Vokoun and Mason were gobbling up the lion's share of games, the players behind them were able to spend more time bettering themselves during practice.


Unlike football quarterbacks, who practice with the No. 1 offense or No. 2 offense, both hockey goalies practice with the entire team. The starter usually practices less to save his legs for the games.

"When a guy is the so-called second guy, he tends to have more time to work on his game than a guy that's the so-called No. 1 guy,'' Korn said. "Sometimes it gets them more ready and I think that's happened here at times. ? Going back to when I was in Buffalo and we had Grant Fuhr, that gave Dominik Hasek an enormous amount of time to work on his game.''

The spotlight burns bright. Comparing the situation to quarterbacks again, Coach Barry Trotz noted that it's much easier to be "the other guy'' ? the one replacing a struggling starter.

"There's a lot less pressure,'' Trotz said. "The backup has nothing to lose. So they're more relaxed, their minds are clear and they just play. The other guy is maybe getting too jammed up, maybe looking backward instead of forward.''

It's all in your head. Another Korn theory is that the pattern has become so predictable over the last few years that it's starting to get in the heads of the goalies.

"These guys all read, and they're aware, and they're asked the questions, so the seed is planted,'' Korn said. "So it can be a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy. When you expect something to go wrong, it often does.''

Ellis and Rinne aren't really sure what to make of the turnstile between the pipes over the past few seasons.

All Ellis knows is that he's gone from No. 2 to No. 1 to No. 2 to ? as best anyone can tell ? No. 1 once again.

"That was one of the problems from last year, trying to figure things out and you never really can," Ellis said. "I'll just try to battle and play the best whenever I get a chance. I'm not going to worry about figuring out anything else right now.''

 

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Anderson to start Thurs. in Nash

It?s all good with Craig Anderson. He went through practice fine today and will be the starting goalie tomorrow night against the Predators.

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Avalanche's long road trip provides test, fun

7 straight games away from home could be perilous, but also fun


It will be the longest road trip in Avalanche history, a seven-game, 13-day journey that will take it to the Music City, the Motor City, the city where hockey was born and five of the NHL's Original Six.

For the fourth-youngest team in the NHL, it's a "throw 'em in the deep end of the pool, see if they sink or swim" moment.

Avs coach Joe Sacco doesn't want that kind of pressure applied to the trip, noting that 72 games will remain when it's over.

But the Avs aren't denying this is an important, potentially perilous trip. The way to deal with it, goalie Craig Anderson said, is to have some fun.

"I think this kind of trip is coming at a good time of the season, really early. It'll give us a chance to bond as a team early on," said Anderson, who practiced Wednesday and felt no aftereffects from a slight groin pull the day before. "We don't want to get ahead of ourselves, or worry about how many days we're going to be on the road.

"We've got to take it step by step, and our focus right now is just getting to Nashville, having a good meal and getting prepared for one game."

Sacco, who will start Anderson in goal tonight in the Predators' home opener, wants the kids making their first NHL road trip (Matt Duchene, Ryan O'Reilly, Matt Hendricks) to enjoy the experience of playing in some "great hockey cities."

"As a coach, I'm trying not to look at it as a seven-game trip. We're going into some buildings where it's their home opener, and those teams are going to be fired up, but at the same time it's a great way for (the kids) to get in the games," Sacco said. "We have no excuses. We know they're going to be ready from the start, and we have to be ready for it."

Some of the road trip actually will be spent in Denver. Between games six and seven ? Oct. 18-20 ? the Avs will spend at home. But the bottom line is, the Avs won't be playing in front of their own fans again until Oct. 23 against Carolina.

"We can use it as a measuring stick for us in some ways, but more so it's going to be the challenge of going on the road for the first time for some young guys," Sacco said.

Anderson, one of the NHL's three stars last week, said the groin injury that kept him out of practice Tuesday was never a worry to him.

"I feel good. It was just an extra day off. That's all it was," Anderson said. "There were no problems out there."

SPOTLIGHT ON

Shea Weber: Weber, 24, has a slap shot to rival those of Al MacInnis and Barry Beck and is a superstar in the makingand he might be there already. Weber, Ryan Suter, 24, and Dan Hamhuis, 26, anchor the Predators' defense and play marathon minutes.

NOTEBOOK

Avalanche notes: Coach Joe Sacco said veteran defenseman Ruslan Salei will be available to the team tonight, but he would not say for sure if Salei will be in the lineup. Salei did not play in the first two games. The team listed him as a healthy scratch but said a flu bug in training camp may have contributed to his not playing. . . . Sacco said backup goalie Peter Budaj will play at some point on the road trip, but he didn't know when that first game would come.

Predators notes: Who would have thought? Nashville's home opener is a meeting of undefeated teams. The Predators' only previous start was a 3-2 shootout victory over the Stars at Dallas on Saturday. . . . Ben Guite, the Avalanche's checking line center last season who recently received an MBA from the University of Maine, caught on with the Predators and was credited with five hits while playing 12 minutes in the opener. . . . Veteran centers Jason Arnott and Steve Sullivan, last season's Masterton Trophy winner, had the goals.