The Nashville Predators were the team nobody wanted to face in the playoffs, and they showed why Friday.
Their best players came through in the last 30 minutes of an evenly matched game indicative of a potentially long series.
Here’s what we learned after Game 1 of the Western Conference first-round playoff series:
1. Nashville’s top line could give the Ducks trouble. The Ducks expectedly put their shutdown line of Ryan Kesler, Jakob Silfverberg and Andrew Cogliano against Ryan Johansen, Calle Jarnkrok and James Neal.