Rangers Visit Predators Following Short Holiday Break
The 82-game NHL regular season continues on Monday with a matchup between the visiting New York Rangers and the host Nashville Predators.
Nashville will be spending much of the upcoming month on the road, while trying to make up some ground on the rest of the Central Division.
The current line has Nashville favored at -127 with New York at +115
Winning their last home game for a period could help provide the Predators with confidence they will need on the road. Nashville is looking for its third win in its past four games when hosting New York Monday night.
The Predators are 17-12-6 on the season and in fifth place in the division. A win would give the Predators a 2-2 split on their current home stand of four games.
The Predators lost their game coming off a short holiday break 3-2 to the Detroit Red Wings. Following their Monday game against the Rangers, Nashville will face St. Louis on Tuesday then Dallas Thursday to start a stretch of 11 of 14 games on the road.
New York is 20-12-4 on the season. The Rangers beat Nashville on November 23 by a score of 3-0 as Henrik Lundqvist stopped all 31 shots.
Lundqvist however allowed 13 goals over a losing streak of three games the Rangers were able to snap on Tuesday when they beat Anaheim in overtime 3-2 that gave them a positive note to take into the holiday break.
In overtime, Mats Zuccarello scored during a power play for New York. He has four goals along with four assists over his past seven games. In the previous nine games to that, he had one point.
Lundqvist will start for the Rangers on Monday for this game and has a goals against average of 1.50 in the eight starts he has in his career against Nashville.
Pekka Rinne has a GAA of 2.01 in his past five but it is uncertain if he will play as the Predators will play again the next night and he might get rest for the game to be ready for Tuesday night’s game.
The game should be close and low scoring as both teams have strong goaltenders. The Rangers are the underdog playing on the road, but the lean here would be with them as they are coming a period of rest over the holiday and should have more energy.
