By MATT BECKER
STATS Senior Writer
January 24, 2011
The Nashville Predators have been the league's hottest team the past three weeks. Beating the Calgary Flames, however, has not come easy for them the past three years.
The Predators hope to end their struggles against the Flames and win for the 11th time in 13 games Monday night in Calgary.
Nashville (27-15-6) is coming off Sunday's 3-2 shootout win over Edmonton, its third straight victory since opening a season-high six-game road trip with a 6-3 loss at Chicago last Sunday. The Predators, who conclude this trip Wednesday in Vancouver, are an NHL-best 10-2-0 since New Year's Eve, helping them vault from 12th place in the Western Conference to fourth.
Against the Oilers, Cody Franson scored the lone shootout goal while Pekka Rinne turned aside all three Edmonton shooters.
Rinne finished with 22 saves and caught a lucky break in overtime after losing his stick on a wild scramble on an Edmonton power play. Shawn Horcoff beat Rinne with a diving backhander, but the puck struck the unattended stick at the goal line and deflected out.
"You've got to be good to be lucky and lucky to be good," Predators coach Barry Trotz said. "That's part of the game. It's like the referee being in the way or what have you. We'll take it."
Rinne has been instrumental to Nashville's run, winning four straight starts, and going 9-1-0 with a 1.48 goals-against average since Dec. 31. He hasn't had much luck against the Flames (22-21-6), however, going 0-2-1 with a 3.63 GAA in four career starts against them.
In the only meeting between these teams this season on Oct. 19, Rinne stopped 34 shots before Rene Bourque scored 2:10 into overtime to give the Flames a 1-0 win.
Calgary is 7-2-0 against the Predators since the start of the 2008-09 season, and Miikka Kiprusoff has been a big part of this success.
Kiprusoff, who made 34 saves in the October meeting, has been in net for all nine games since 2008-09, posting a 2.00 GAA average and two shutouts. He has limited Nashville to two total goals in the last three games, and one goal or fewer in five of the last six meetings.
Kiprusoff is coming off a solid performance, making a season-high 41 saves in Saturday's 4-3 shootout win over Vancouver. He had allowed at least four goals in four of his previous five starts.
Brendan Morrison, Curtis Glencross and Tim Jackman all had goals Saturday, while Alex Tanguay scored the winner in the shootout. Tanguay's goal was originally waved off but after a lengthy review the call on the ice was overturned.
Calgary has points in seven of eight games (4-1-3), and is 8-3-3 since Dec. 23. Despite being in 14th place in the West, the Flames are only five points behind San Jose for the final playoff spot.
"There's too many teams involved for that last playoff spot," Tanguay said. "So we said from December 23 it's going to take four points out of every six. That's been our mindset, and we've been pretty successful since."
