The two teams at the bottom of the Central Division will try to shake their early-season blues when the Nashville Predators visit the Chicago Blackhawks on Friday night.
Nashville dropped five straight before surprising the Boston Bruins on Tuesday, while the Blackhawks have lost three of four.
The Predators escaped the ranks of the winless behind 33 saves from Juuse Saros in a 4-0 win against visiting Boston. Ryan O’Reilly and Luke Evangelista each had a goal and an assist, and Roman Josi had two assists for the Predators.
“You go through a (losing streak) like this, you’ve got to celebrate (a win) a little bit and enjoy it,” Predators coach Andrew Brunette said. “It was well-deserved. I think we were squeezing our sticks and feeling a little bit of the heat, and it could’ve (gone) two different ways. I think today they stayed positive, they encouraged each other, and they helped each other get out of it a little bit here for one game.”
The Predators had been outscored 23-10 in their first five games and this was the first game in which they had scored more than three goals. Saros, meanwhile, picked up his first shutout of the season after giving up 12 goals in his three previous starts.
“Obviously there’s still stuff we can be better at, but a very big step in the right direction at least,” Nashville’s Gustav Nyquist said. “But again, we’ve got to keep building. Obviously, this is just one game. We’ve dug ourselves a little hole here in the beginning, so back at it on Friday.”
Nashville forward Zachary L’Heureux made his NHL debut against Boston. A first-round pick (No. 27) in the 2021 NHL Draft, L’Heureux had one shot on goal in 9:59 of ice time.
In Chicago, the Canucks scored 21 seconds into the game and the Blackhawks were never able to tie it. Vancouver had a 4-2 advantage after one period.
“Start was unfortunate,” Chicago coach Luke Richardson said. “I thought we settled in again and battled and got ourselves on the board. Battled again in the second period. But that’s the same old story. We can’t fall behind, especially at home.”
Ryan Donato, Taylor Hall and Tyler Bertuzzi scored for the Blackhawks, and Petr Mrazek made 24 saves.
The Blackhawks were plagued by slow starts last season as well.
“It seems like any game we’ve started slow, we’ve had trouble in and we can’t seem to come back from it,” Nick Foligno said. “It’s a bit of a mentality of understanding, if it does happen, we have to have the mental fortitude to come back into it and do the things necessary.”
Connor Bedard did not have a point and was minus-3 against Vancouver. He has gone four games without a goal but leads the team with six assists.
Chicago is 1-2 on a four-game homestand that will be followed by a five-game road trip featuring three games in California.
The Blackhawks have activated 18-year-old defenseman Artyom Levshunov and assigned the No. 2 overall pick in this year’s NHL draft to AHL affiliate Rockford. Levshunov hurt his right foot in the offseason.
