Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Predators blowing it at home

Preds

The Nashville Predators lost a home game last night. Unfortunately for the team that’s in the midst of its most important season in franchise history, losing at home is becoming a nasty habit.

No team in the NHL has fewer home victories than the Preds, who fell to 4-5-3 at Bridgestone Arena with Tuesday’s 3-2 loss to Phoenix.

On the bright side, Nashville is 8-6-1 on the road, one of the better records in the league.

“Right now, we seem to be better road warriors than we are at home,” coach Barry Trotz said, as per The Tennessean. “You want to be at least .500 on the road and then have a pretty good record at home, and that should put you in pretty good standing. But right now, we have to improve our home record.”

According to defenseman Ryan Suter, the problems at home aren’t for lack of support from the faithful.

“We have great fans, they’re loud. It’s an exciting building to play in,” Suter said. “We have to get that swagger back at home and we’ll be fine. You can’t hit the panic button yet.”

Nashville’s only two points out of eighth place in the Western Conference, so Suter’s right – it’s not time to panic yet. But speaking of UFA-to-be Suter, you have to wonder if he’s looking at the standings and wondering if he wants to go through this dogfight every season.

Perhaps Preds fans can take something positive out of Suter’s comments about realignment.

“Instead of going out west twice, we only have to go west one time. You play all the teams in your conference five or six times,” he said. “It’s easier on travel, for sure.”

At the very least, he didn’t say, “I think it’s great. It’ll really cut down on travel for us. All those trips from Detroit to the Pacific Coast really take their toll.”

Nashville is in Columbus Thursday to play the Blue Jackets. After that, it’s four straight at home. (Gulp.)